Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 will be remembered as another action-packed high-flying thriller without much substance and semblance but wrought with complexities that cannot be explained. Well, it is one thing to be mysterious and entirely another to be absolutely vague. That is the feeling I got from this seventh instalment of the highly successful Mission Impossible franchise. Now, where do we draw the line in supposing that it is okay to just gloss over the lack of any depth in the story with mesmerizing action sequences? I simply do not know the answer to be honest!
The Skydance and TC Productions film has definitely grossed millions around the globe making it a success on the surface but the underlying fractures of the series could not be hidden rather they have surfaced with more focus in Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. I have been on the edge recently with the disappointment from the Rurouni Kenshin reboot and now faced with the flaws of Tom Cruise’s new juggernaut I am on the verge of losing it. I will just vent my frustrations here for you all to read.
The Curse Of A Vague Antagonist
Cruise’s pitch-perfect stunt orientation and director Christopher McQuarrie’s talent for creating epic action scenes that really feel like they would be impossible to pull off haven’t been able to do justice to Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. What is the reason for that you may ask! The answer is an overabundance of self-serving jokes and pre-packaged catchphrases that do very little to elevate the monotonous action-spy jargon to an engaging height of indulgence. I might be asking for too much here but there are so many spy-action flicks out there doing the same things without any individual uniqueness that it is becoming rather boring.
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 is set a few years after the events of Fallout. It follows Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt and his squad as they attempt to protect the planet from a soulless, machiavellian AI that has the ability to trigger yet another round of world wars. Throughout the movie, nobody seems to know exactly what “the Entity” is—Dead Reckoning’s idiotic name for its faceless, mostly digital enemy—or what it was originally intended to be used for. After a mysterious incident releases the program into the open and a secret arms race begins. A global crisis brought about by a vague villain!
The Mission Impossible films have always focused on tension, intrigue and action rather than telling compelling stories that make sense. However, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 devotes so much of its narrative effort to clear up ambiguities which they are unable to in the end (e.g., what is the Entity and how does it differ from the other characters, such as Ethan and Ilsa Faust and Luther Stickell and Benji Dunn) that it often veers into parody territory. Now, this is the realm of over-complexified stupidity that is rarely on show.
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1
Former IMF Director Eugene Kittridge returns to the life of Ethan with a new assignment in Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Kittridge tells Hunt that there is, in fact, a rogue Artificial Intelligence (AI) out there that the superpowers are trying to get their hands on. One of these AIs can be manipulated by cutting a key into two pieces. One of these pieces is going to be sold in the black market. Now, not only does Ethan have to get his hands on the key, but he also has to figure out what it’s going to be used for. The key will only matter if the IMF knows where to get it and how to get it.
After a desert firefight that brings Ilsa Faust back into the fold, the series’ first major event in the first half of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 takes place at the Dubai airport where Hunt learns that there are others involved in the espionage chess match, including an old nemesis in the form of Gabriel, the morally bankrupt mercenary who is part of the reason Hunt became an agent. Gabriel is an agent of chaos, someone who doesn’t just want to see the world burn, he wants to see it burn in a way that causes the greatest amount of pain possible. In a lot of ways, he is the opposite of Ethan.
On the way to the airport, he runs into a pickpocket, Grace, who is caught in the crossfire of all this world-shaking chaos, as well as a couple of agents on a mission to find the villainous Ethan, played by a delightfully grumpy Shea Whigham, and his nemesis Greg Tarzan-Davis. A silent killer, sketched with great precision by the ever-talented Pomeroy, plays a vital role in a few action sequences. And, of course, there’s the return of Vanessa Kirby as the nefarious arms dealer, White Widow. If there’s one weak spot in the ensemble, it’s probably Kirby. She’s never been able to quite convey “power player” in these films the way she should.
Mission Impossible Lecagy
People are here for Tom Cruise to run. The most common image most people have of Tom Cruise in the franchise is of him stretching his legs and swinging his arms, which he does more than once in Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. But it’s almost as if the momentum of this image is the artistic driving force behind the entire film. The movement of the trains, the cars, and of course of course of Tom Cruise’s feet. This is an action movie that’s about speed, and that’s something that’s been lost in the age of reduced stakes through the use of computer graphics. The runaway train will always have inherent visceral power over waves of animatronic bad guys.
These movies don’t rely too much on computer-generated imagery, so we know it’s real when Tom Cruise jumps off the motorcycle. When blows connect, bodies fly and cars collide, we don’t just watch it happen, we feel it. The choreography here is so good that only ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ can compete for best in the same category this year. However, that very amazing fact makes Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 a monotonous letdown. Well, maybe this is the legacy of the Mission Impossible franchise.
Ode To The Action Superstar
At the start of the ‘MI’ series the plots and stunts were so preposterous that by the second film, I was beginning to wonder if Tom was disappearing and turning himself into some kind of special effect. The plots and stunts have remained preposterous ever since, and sometimes they’ve been funny, as they are in Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. But over the years the series has surprised me by making Cruise seem more human than he’s ever seemed before. One reason for this is that the movies helped shift the focus of his star appeal from his easy smile — the smile that gave him so much to love — to his workaholic body.
Tom Cruise’s grimaces and bulging muscles have had a positive effect on his personality, as has his brusque ferocity in maintaining his stardom. And it’s hard to imagine an actor today who starts out in a superhero movie achieving the same level of fame. That’s because the movies (at least Hollywood’s) don’t have the power they once did, and the corporate-branded superhero suit will always matter more than the person wearing it. Tom Cruise does not need a suit; after all, he was built for speed, and he just needs to keep going.
