Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 follows Ethan Hunt and the IMF team who must track down a terrifying new weapon in the form of an Artificial Intelligence, a threat to all of humanity if it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than the mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most.
The Mission Impossible series has certainly come a long way from its rough beginnings and has become one of the few action film franchises to consistently improve itself with every new installment. Ever since Christopher McQuarrie took over as the ongoing director of the franchise we have had some serious knockouts, especially in 2018 with MI Fallout, which has remained my favorite of the franchise. And now five years we have the first half of the newest chapter that the trailers and Christopher McQuarrie have set up to be one of the boldest entries of the franchise.
Does it live up to the hyped-up expectations? In certain ways it does but at the same time, I feel this was a kind of a step down in other ways. By no means am I saying the film is bad as I definitely had a good time with it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the best action film of the year as many critics and reviewers seem to be saying. There are things that I felt held back this film from being as good or even better than its predecessors, as well as some narrative decisions that are making this franchise start to teeter into certain directions that I consider to be unsavory.
I am aware this is only the first part of the story and that perhaps the second film can improve everything as a whole for me, but for now I’m going off of everything I saw and experienced with this film only.
But let’s first go over what really works with this film and what managed to live up to the expectations. To start off, we have to talk about the action and stunt work because that’s always been the biggest thing about these films. The action is indeed masterfully crafted, featuring adrenaline-rushing sequences that have you by your throat and don’t let go from the very moment things kick off. Perfectly crafted choreographed fight scenes, intensely fun chases, death-defying stunts, and crazy amounts of practical work are all put on full display in this film and it’s all amazingly well made in every technical aspect. Brilliant editing combined with stellar cinematography allows audiences to feel the very thrills and excitement that happens on screen as if you were there, experiencing everything the characters are going through.
Not to mention we also get an epic score from composer Lorne Balfe who continues to deliver banger after banger with his film scores lately.
And as for the characters themselves, we do get a lot of solid performances all around with what feels like the biggest ensemble we have had in a Mission Impossible film.
Tom Cruise is once again great as Ethan Hunt, delivering a surprisingly emotionally driven performance this time around as he is having to face some very choices that are more difficult than he’s ever had to before. It really feels like he’s being pushed to his limits in a more psychological manner than a physical manner due to the kind of threat he is going up against this time, and the film also tackles themes of trust and sacrifice in an interesting manner.
Starring alongside him though is the newest entry of the franchise, Hayley Atwell as Grace, a thief who gets herself launched into this crazy game. Hayley definitely stole the spotlight in this film with her extremely expressive acting and humor that gives this film its chaotic energy and makes a lot of sequences feel more compelling because of her inclusion. I definitely did not expect her to have as much of a central role in this film but she is truly a welcome addition to the team.
The rest of the cast, both returning and new faces, also deliver really well, including Pom Klementieff as Paris, a French assassin, who you could tell was having the time of her life playing this unhinged-as-hell character.
And while mostly everyone gets a time to shine in this film I will admit some characters did become a bit hard to follow amongst the chaos in terms of motivations and allegiances, making things really confusing for me as the film goes on. In the previous films there always seemed to be a firm sense of direction for specific characters where you feel you could follow and understand everything they are doing, but here I couldn’t help but get lost with a bunch of the characters, including the villain Gabriel, played by Esai Morales.
While he is certainly a dangerous and personal foe that Ethan faces I struggled to understand the exact motives of his character and his relation to the true main threat of this film’s story. There’s no firm explanation for why he’s committing all these horrific actions nor anything shown of what he gets out of it for his own personal gain.
And this leads to what I consider to be the core problem with the film from a narrative perspective, which is the aforementioned Artificial Intelligence. I won’t go into any spoiler details regarding the AI itself but I will say that while it is a timely plot device that does set up some pretty great stakes for the story I feel it wasn’t handled well in the film as a whole. Some of the abilities that it has and the actions it commits really stretch the credulity and threaten to make this series enter some Fast & Furious territory.
I know Mission Impossible has at times pushed the boundaries of reality in previous installments but at the same time I did feel there was at least somewhat of a grounded balance holding the franchise from going off the rails, but this installment in particular I felt was really walking a fine line with its plot line and certain elements. I get that with this being the 7th installment in the series you don’t want to be too repetitive and want to throw in new things to keep the series engaging story-wise, but there are better ways of doing so, especially with an AI plotline, that don’t risk turning Mission Impossible into some crossover with the Terminator franchise.
Not saying this film goes that far but there are moments where it felt it was going down a route that it shouldn’t, and the great amount of exciting action wasn’t enough to distract me completely from this.
The other problem I felt with this film is that I feel it doesn’t hold out on its own as a Part One. When you look at other Part Ones of two-parter films, the best ones (Ex: IT Chapter 1, Deathly Hallows Part One, Dune Part One, Avengers Infinity War, and the recent Spider-Man Across the Spider-verse) are able to hold out on their own without needing to rely too heavily on the following sequel to make it feel better as a whole. This film feels like it doesn’t have enough narratively to stand out as its own film, and instead relies heavily on its next installment to justify the directions it takes, as well as a lack of crucial development for certain characters like the villain Gabriel.
Now granted Part Two could fix some of these issues I have with Part One when seeing the complete story and where everything leads, but that entirely depends on whether or not Part Two is done well. You can throw in all the crazy-as-hell stunts and effects you want but there needs to be solid substance at the core to keep me engaged, and while I felt engaged with Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout, I didn’t really feel that with this one.
I did have a fun time with this film overall and I am eager to see what happens next, but I can’t help but feel like this wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be, nor was it as great as it’s been hyped up to be. It’s very well crafted in a lot of ways and it certainly delivers on some of its main promises, but I feel there was much more they could have improved upon in this first part without needing to wait for the complete story in order to be better. It’s a good installment of the franchise worth watching for sure, but be warned, you may not get everything you expect depending on what you’re seeking with Part One. I’m going to give Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 a B+ = 89.
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