The Mission Impossible movies have been the elite action movie franchise for over two decades, providing an American alternative to James Bond and a longer shelf life than Jason Bourne. I feel like the franchise really hit its stride with 2011’s Ghost Protocol when Tom Cruise leaned into doing his own stunts. These became the focus, how most stunts they were doing were for real.
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The wow factor of seeing Cruise really hanging from the side of a multi-story building or a plane as it was taking off was an absolute spectacle. And then Cruise topped it all in the sixth film, Fallout, as he took control of a helicopter and showcased the most unbelievable aerial chase ever put on screen.
Fallout was such an event, even a podcast that I listen to that covers basketball exclusively, felt they needed to do an episode on the movie. Enter Dead Reckoning Part 1. Needless to say, with the high bar the last few movies have set and the buzz this film was already gaining, I had huge, possibly unobtainable expectations.
And I was disappointed, but only slightly.
The best thing about Tom Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt, and the main trait that sets him apart from other spy juggernauts, is he fails, a lot. What should be pretty straightforward missions are always foiled by some kind of outside intervention, the plot MacGuffin always juuuuuust out of reach. It makes for entertaining viewing, especially in a packed cinema. Of course, that trend doesn’t let up here, I saw this in IMAX with hundreds of other fans, and the collective groan/awkward laugh whenever another factor would pile on to the many reasons why Hunt and his team hadn’t achieved their goals was so, so satisfying. And then the quick thinking from Ethan as he had to roll with the punches and find another way is always a treat, especially when it leads to a big ol’ stunt.
One thing that I noticed more about this chapter, is nearly all the advertising was focused on Tom Cruise doing the ‘motorbike stunt’. The first trailer I saw was a mini-documentary on the making of this stunt. I won’t lie, it really gee’d me up, but I realised as I was entering the cinema that I actually had no idea what this movie was about outside of that. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I like to be surprised. But my issue is: I found the making of the stunt more interesting than the bike jump in context with the story.
Don’t get me wrong, it was still really cool, but it was just built up so much in my mind, and as I said before, I had high, high expectations. So, after seeing it actually in the film, I was like “Oh, that was it?”… And I mean, that’s not a bad place to be, it’s really just shining a massive spotlight on how good every other stunt in the previous films has been leading up to this.
In saying that, there were plenty of other stunts to whet my appetite, including an EPIC car chase through Rome and a fight on top of a train. But I did come across a little hiccup that I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed before. I’ve already seen these set pieces in the last few weeks in other movies. Fast X had a car chase through a lot of the same landmarks in Rome and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s opening scene had Indy throwing down on top of a moving train, complete with the characters dropping to a prone position as the train zooms through a tunnel and they’re trying to avoid the signs that come along, just like in this movie! You could argue that MI: Dead Reckoning does them better, but I couldn’t help feeling like the scene didn’t land as strongly after just seeing almost the same thing so recently.
So, the stunts are good and that’s what got me through the door. But considering that this is a two-parter, the narrative’s gotta be pretty strong to warrant two movies, right?
I didn’t think so.
First of all, with any story that is broken up into separate ‘part’ movies, you better have a hectic cliffhanger; Think Infinity War – the way that ends had us all wondering how the hell the heroes could turn things around when Endgame came along. I didn’t feel that way coming out of this movie. In fact, without spoiling things, everything was starting to look pretty good for Ethan.
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In Dead Reckoning an advanced AI program has gone rogue and become a kind of ghost in the machine, it has shown that it can access anything from your daughter’s email account to a program that could launch nuclear bombs all around the world. So naturally, Ethan accepts a mission to ‘kill’ what they call ‘The Entity’.
This is where the movie kinda lost me.
AI is topical at the moment, we’re all waiting with bated breath to see if ChatGPT eventually evolves into Skynet and it makes sense that they would twist this into an espionage plot where an AI program could become a global threat.
I just don’t like how it’s portrayed here. It’s a bit… Lame.
I like the idea of this faceless enemy that is literally everywhere all at once, that doesn’t have shortcomings such as emotions and can execute devastating commands within a millisecond. That is terrifying. The problem is they feel the need to give this AI a ‘face’. Represented mainly by a lame screensaver on any screen that it happens to be occupying, followed by a lame sound effect. And then the ‘The Entity’ has a human lackey, Gabriel, who feels like he is only there so Ethan has somebody to physically fight. Why does it need that? This thing could do whatever it wants through our dependence on technology, and the reason it is so threatening is because it isn’t human, yet it has a human do its bidding? How did this human even get in cahoots with ‘The Entity’? Did they meet up at a bar one dark and stormy night? Did this dude create the program? I guess we might find out more in the second movie, but I just feel like this taints the whole AI thing. And the amount of times they call this thing ‘The Entity’ gets real cringy. There’s even a scene where the AI throws a party… It’s a great idea in theory, but it doesn’t feel like the writers knew how to handle it.
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I feel better after that rant, and yes, I accept that it is just a dumb action movie and I shouldn’t get so caught up on something as trifle as the plot. It’s just that the more I thought about it, the more it annoyed me! But moving on, this is still event cinema, and I highly recommend seeing it on the biggest screen you can find. Tom Cruise really is one of the last true movie stars and he has such a passion for his craft that you can’t help but be charmed by him.
Cue the theme song.
