“Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” Is A Scary Picture Of What Could Happen If All The Information We Volunteer Online Were Used Against Us

If there is one person in Hollywood who knows how to do a successful sequel, it’s Tom Cruise. After his runaway box office success Top Gun: Maverick last year, Cruise has proven his ability to make a sequel that honors and improves upon the original. Despite a production that was halted by everything under the sun, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One has finally made its way to screens.

The last three Mission Impossible films were fantastic action films, and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One keeps the streak going. Other than its cumbersome 163-minute runtime, this action/adventure film is perfect for date night at the movies. Dead Reckoning pits Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) against a new kind of villain: a sentient Artificial Intelligence called The Entity. As the world’s intelligence officers – including old nemesis Director Kittridge (Henry Czerny) – seek to acquire the deadly AI, Hunt tries to track down the pieces of the key that controls the Entity before anyone else can get their hands on them. 

It’s hard to judge Dead Reckoning Part One completely because it is, frustratingly, another two-part film story. This increasingly popular trend gives movies a broader scope for their plots, but prevents the audience from having real closure – and from making the final decision about whether the movie was truly good. Dead Reckoning promises a rewarding story, but whether the second part will fulfill it remains to be seen.

As the film stands, though, I think that Dead Reckoning Part One is worth a trip to the movie theater. Dead Reckoning is exactly what I want from a good action film: thrilling action sequences based in real stunts, humor grounded in beloved characters, and a mission that leaves me wanting to live a little better when I leave the theater. 

*I’ve tried to avoid spoilers where it wasn’t, you know, impossible.* 

Previous Missions and a Compelling Team of Characters

Mission Impossible, first released in 1996, rebooted the television series of the same name from the 1960s. The project was specifically chosen by Tom Cruise, who loved the show as a child, for his first credit as a producer and not just as a film star.

Spy hotshot Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) seeks to find the people responsible for the death of his team and mentor (Jon Voight), all while being chased by IMF director Kittridge (Henry Czerny) under suspicion of committing the crime himself. It’s as much a whodunit as it is a spy story, and though the young Tom Cruise hasn’t quite found his sea legs as Ethan Hunt, the film still starts the franchise with pizzazz. Ving Rhames makes his first of many appearances as Luther, Hunt’s shady tech wizz, in this film.

The Mission Impossible films took a while to find a settled tone, however. Mission Impossible II is often considered the worst, and is the only Mission Impossible with a rotten score on RottenTomatoes. It’s an aimless, would-be James Bond knockoff that falls flat. The third film has a separate problem: it’s much too dark a take on Hunt’s character. In Mission Impossible III, Ethan is getting married to lovely and innocent Julia (Michelle Monaghan) but must return to the IMF to find the traitor who caused the death of an IMF agent (Keri Russell). Under the direction of JJ Abrams and with a bone-chilling villain played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Mission Impossible III is an excellent film, but its darker tone doesn’t quite fit the rest of the films.

The fourth installment, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, was a turning point for the Mission Impossible films. The tone of the films became a bit more tongue-in-cheek, and Cruise really hits his stride as an earnest and slightly awkward Ethan Hunt. It’s no secret that Tom Cruise does his own stunts, but these films begin to poke fun at the unbelievability of these stunts before Cruise, even more shockingly, manages to pull them off. Ghost Protocol is worth watching for Cruise’s incredible climb up the Burj Khalifa.

In Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Fallout, Hunt and the gang battle against a villain in charge of a rogue organization (the similarity to James Bond’s most recent adventures in Skyfall and Spectre is, I think, intentional). These films also introduce some of the best characters in the entire Mission Impossible franchise, while giving Ethan a chance to say goodbye to characters from the earlier films. 

The credits for these Mission Impossible films are a veritable who's who of big celebrity names, including Alec Baldwin as the new director of the IMF, Henry Cavill as a rival CIA agent, and Jeremy Renner as one of Ethan’s new IMF partners. Best of all, Hunt’s new tech wizz Benjy (the delightful Simon Pegg) continues to accept the mission. Benjy continues to provide comedic relief, but Pegg’s portrayal of him matures slowly in each film as the novice becomes a master in his own right.

Rebecca Ferguson’s MI6 operative Ilsa, whose name is a reference to the classic film Casablanca, plays an especially important role in Dead Reckoning. Ilsa and Ethan had a captivating chemistry in Rogue Nation, and Cruise and Ferguson continue to show just how few words you actually need to communicate a unique devotion between two characters.

Why Ethan Hunt is the Best Super Spy in the Movies

When people think of action-adventure movies and an impressive super-spy, they usually think of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Bond is iconic for his gadgets, his high-speed chases, and his amorous adventures. Bond accepts his mission without question, and he takes small concern for the collateral damage that comes along the way.

Ethan Hunt is different from James Bond, and that’s why I love him. Hunt lives by a simple but powerful code: every human being’s life has meaning and therefore must be protected. It’s what he sacrifices everything for and the thing that keeps him coming back for one impossible mission after another. Hunt doesn’t just receive a mission – he weighs whether he can live by this code each time he “chooses to accept” his mission. “None of our lives can matter more than this mission” says his friend Luther, but Hunt “refuses to accept that.”

Holding to this principle is often the thing that puts Hunt in the most danger. He crashes his car to avoid running into a mother and her baby during a car chase, and he designs his missions to put himself on the frontlines of danger instead of his friends. Knowing Hunt’s dedication to this principle makes each life – and death – of the films more meaningful because we know in each instance that Ethan would gladly have sacrificed himself instead.

This is just one way that Hunt shows many signs of a true leader. He rallies his team and constantly thinks of new plans to face the ever-changing challenges ahead. He’s focused and dedicated. And above all, he treats others – especially women – with respect.

Hunt’s treatment of women is another difference from the suave womanizer James Bond. Where Bond girls are expendable to Bond, part of the sum collateral damage of his mission, Hunt goes out of his way to protect the women who come across his path. It’s no coincidence that in the Mission Impossible films, especially the more recent films, there are no gratuitous sex scenes or flings between Ethan Hunt and random women. Good old-fashioned chivalry is still a part of Hunt’s code – whether the woman is an ally like Ilsa or the treacherous arms dealer “The White Widow” (Vanessa Kirby).

Hunt’s chivalry is particularly notable in Dead Reckoning Part One. Despite frequently being at odds with new girl Grace (Hayley Atwell), a pickpocket who is hired to steal the key, Hunt nevertheless treats her with respect and goes out of his way to keep her safe. He follows her around not just to reclaim the key; he keeps an eye on Grace knowing the danger she is in and feeling responsible for her life. This is highlighted in the climactic train crash sequence at the end, where Hunt slowly guides Grace and protects her as they try to escape the falling cars – endangering his own life in the process. It’s refreshing to have a movie franchise where the male is unapologetically the hero, but expresses his heroism in the way he treats women.

Fight the Fake: Mission Impossible Takes on Artificial Intelligence in More Ways than One

If you saw any promotional materials for Dead Reckoning Part One, you probably got a taste of Tom Cruise’s stunning leap off a mountainside on a motorcycle. It’s one of the most impressive Mission Impossible stunts and took my breath away, even though I knew it was coming. It’s not the idea of the stunt that is impressive, however – this type of stunt is modeled in every Fast & Furious sequel and spin-off. What takes your breath away when Cruise sails off the edge of the mountain is that he is actually doing the stunt as it is filmed.

Cruise is famous for his dedication to doing his own stunts in Mission Impossible (including his high rise climb in Ghost Protocol and holding onto the side of a plane in Fallout, to name just a few). It’s more common now for action films to rely on green screen and CGI effects, but as we’ve seen in the most recent Indiana Jones sequel, this does more to distract us than to captivate us. 

In Mission Impossible, the film’s most unbelievable moments are filmed as realistically as possible – making the impossible seem real. The film's train fight sequences actually occurred on a moving train, with the actors strapped to the roof. The ensuing train crash, drawing heavily both from the original Mission Impossible and silent comedies featuring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, involved crashing a real train on camera.

This dedication to authenticity in the making of the film bleeds into the plot of Dead Reckoning Part One itself. The film’s villain, after all, is a sentient Artificial Intelligence that has begun to set the world’s nations against one another. It achieves this by altering all digital intel, deleting video footage of his human henchman Gabriel (Esai Morales) in real-time, and stealing voice recognition patterns to mislead Ethan and his friends. It’s a scary picture of what would happen if all the information we volunteer online were used against us – and a reminder that there is no substitute for authenticity in a world where things are easily faked. 

Of the blockbusters released this summer, Dead Reckoning Part One strangely feels the most timely. After all, the ongoing Writers and Actors Guild strikes, which have put Hollywood production on shutdown, hinge partly on the use of artificial intelligence in the creative process. While the story of Dead Reckoning Part One reminds us of the dangers of artificial intelligence, the film proves that we don’t need CGI – or AI – to tell compelling stories in the first place.

Closing Thoughts

It’s hard to judge a two-part film until the second half is released, but what we’ve seen in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is a promising start. Tom Cruise has, once again, reminded people why going to the movies is worth your evening. All things considered, Dead Reckoning Part One is an easy mission to accept.

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