Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson,
Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham,
Cary Elwes
Tom Cruise risks life and limb once again to save cinemas in the
first of a double-headed (probable) conclusion to the spy series that has
become so intertwined with his own lore that it's practically impossible to
now separate Tom Cruise from Ethan Hunt.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is a love letter
to the Cruise mythos, and to the Mission: Impossible series, and to
blockbuster cinema. It pushes all three to their limits and reminds us that
their very survival may not be mutually exclusive. You can't imagine the MI
series continuing without Cruise, and without the MI series, is there any
point in Hollywood hanging on? Outside of this franchise, very little of
note has come out the so-called dream factory in the past couple of decades,
and most of the worthwhile blockbusters have starred Tom Cruise.
I adore this series (save for the awful second instalment) and I'm fresh
from a rewatch but I couldn't tell you what any of their plots were about.
There's always some sort of a macguffin that Hunt and his IMF buddies need
to get their hands on before some villain does. In this case it's two parts
of a key that when combined could spell the end of the world. The villain
that must be thwarted here is a terrorist named Gabriel, who has a
connection to Hunt's pre-IMF past. Played by Esai Morales, Gabriel is
the very definition of sinister, creepy in a way that really gets under your
skin. Not since Philip Seymour Hoffman's turn in the under-rated third
instalment has a Mission: Impossible baddy been so convincingly
menacing.
From the off there's something a little different about this entry in the
franchise. You get the sense that the stakes are higher, not for the planet,
but for Hunt and his friends. You feel they may not get out of this one, and
it's a mark of how we've gotten to know them so well over previous films
that we actually care. This isn't a superhero movie where we know the heroes aren't in any real
peril. Hunt is clearly shitting himself throughout here. The weight of the
world's future is on his shoulders, just as cinema's future rests on
Cruise's. Blow this and it could be the end of everything.
Unlike superhero movies which stack their casts with quality actors and
proceed to bury them in spandex, this movie boasts some serious thespian
talent and allows them to act. Hayley Atwell will have everyone
asking why she isn't a movie star with her charismatic performance as cheeky
professional thief Grace (Hitchcock fans will see what they did there). Some
of the movie's most fun moments come courtesy of the interaction between
Grace and Hunt, Cruise brilliantly conveying his irritation at constantly
being outwitted by this formidable new foe. Vanessa Kirby returns as
The White Widow, but it's when she's tasked with playing another actor
playing Vanessa Kirby courtesy of the series' mask shtick that we see just
what a great performer she is. Henry Czerny returns to the first
movie's role of IMF director Kittridge, and director
Christopher McQuarrie has fun nodding to DePalma's memorably
off-kilter shooting off a tense conversation between Hunt and Kittridge.
Pom Klementieff has a blast as the sort of she-devil the Bond
franchise used to regularly serve up (the sheer joy she seems to take in
being a villain is reminiscent of Barbara Carrera in
Never Say Never Again). Shea Whigham gets to play his own version of
The Fugitive's Deputy Gerrard as an agent tracking Hunt. Ving Rhames and
Simon Pegg bring a surprising amount of heart to the film, a reminder
that this boils down a group of buddies looking out for one another.
It's Rebecca Ferguson as the returning Ilsa Faust who provides the
film with its soul. While they may be busy saving the world, Hunt and Faust
get a couple of brief moments that demonstrate how much they mean to each
other, and it's the most romantic thing I've seen in a Hollywood action
blockbuster since The Empire Strikes Back (I could mention the
influence of another spy movie but that would be a spoiler). The film might
be packed with bombastic action but it never loses sight of its human
relationships. Some of the most memorable moments are simple gestures,
including a smile from Faust to Hunt that will melt your heart.
But of course it's the action that will (hopefully) draw in the crowds, and
no adrenalin junkies will be going into cold turkey with this one. There's
the well publicised motorbike jump off a cliff, a
From Russia with Love style brawl in a cramped alleyway, and
Hunt faces his most dangerous task yet - negotiating Italian traffic. The
action is relentless, and while I don't think McQuarrie is the most talented
director when it comes to assembling action, he does understand the
importance of carrying character into action scenes. Not in the annoying
Marvel way of having characters constantly making quips during action scenes
but in how his characters react and interact physically.
Like never before in the series, this chapter plays up Cruise's comic
talents, with a lot of visual comedy derived from the toll all this is
taking on his aging body. His hilarious frustration at being unable to drive
a certain type of car is an astute metaphor for how once you hit a certain
age, some things just aren't as easy as they once were. The action is
massive, the very definition of spectacle, but it never loses sight of the
people involved. Like the best Star Trek movie,
Wrath of Khan, it balances the dilemma of saving the greater good while looking out for
those you have a personal attachment to. The movie's villain employs
Artificial Intelligence to take down the world, but its heroes are as human
as they come.
Dead Reckoning Part One is a reminder of all the joy
Hollywood has given us over the decades, riffing on everything from Buster
Keaton to the previous instalment of its own series, via
The Great Escape, Lawrence of Arabia and a good
half-dozen classic Bond movies. It's a reminder of all we could lose too.
Cruise won't be around forever. Will he? Cinema will survive in some form,
but maybe not cinemas. Let's hope they can at least hang on long enough for
Dead Reckoning Part Two. This is what they were built for.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is on UK/ROI VOD now.
