MISSION : IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE' - Tuesday 11th July 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'MISSION : IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE' earlier this week, and this eagerly awaited American action spy film is the seventh film in the 'Mission : Impossible' franchise, and is a sequel to 2018's 'Mission : Impossible - Fallout'. This film is once again Directed, Co-Written and Co-Produced by Christopher McQuarrie who also helmed 'Fallout' and 2015's 'Mission : Impossible - Rogue Nation'. The first six films in the ever popular franchise grossed worldwide US$3.57B at the Box Office off the back of combined production budgets of US$828M. 'Dead Reckoning - Part Two' is slated for release on 28th June 2024 with Christopher McQuarrie again in the Director's chair with Parts One and Two being filmed back to back. This film cost US$290M to produce, and has so far grossed US$20M.

Here the film opens up on board a Russian nuclear submarine under the pack ice of the Bering Sea - The Sevastopol - with two high ranking naval officers each with one half of an interlocking key forming a crucifix like shape, insert said key into an AI device that renders the submarine invisible to other foreign vessels so allowing it to stealthily potentially invade any other country's naval fleet undetected. Up on the radar screen comes the sighting of a foreign submarine that the Captain gives the order to arm the torpedo tubes and engage. But the foreign vessel has already launched a torpedo attack on the supposed invisible Sevastopol. As the crew prepare for impact in the closing seconds the torpedo's simply disappear, as does the foreign submarine that the Sevastopol had already sent torpedo's toward. The AI device is seen going into overdrive, as its own torpedo's turn around and head back in the direction from whence they came, detonating on impact and killing every crew member on board, many of whom float to the surface only to be trapped under thick sea ice, with the Sevastopol sinking to the bottom of the sea. 

IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, who also Co-Produces here) is assigned to retrieve half of a key from his ally and disavowed MI6 Agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who has a bounty of US$50M placed on her. He travels to the Arabian Desert, engages in a gunfight during a sand storm with a bunch of bounty hunters and briefly reunites with Ilsa with them both having seen off all the hunters. After staging the scene, he tells her that to all intents and purposes she is now dead, and therefore to lay very low. 

Back in the US, Ethan infiltrates a meeting of the Community, where officials of various intelligence agencies, including former IMF Director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and the Director of National Intelligence Denlinger (Cary Elwes), discuss an experimental AI called the Entity. Originally designed to sabotage digital systems, the Entity turned rogue, expanded to potential sentience, and infiltrated all major defence and military systems and intelligence networks worldwide. The worlds key power players are now racing both to prevent sabotage and to gain control of the Entity, which rests with both halves of the key, although no one knows at this point what the key is for!

Ethan firmly believes that the Entity is too powerful for anyone to control, and so he vows to destroy it. He and his teammates Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) travel to Abu Dhabi International Airport to intercept the holder of the other half of the key. Ethan evades Community agents as well as Gabriel (Esai Morales), an Entity liaison with ties to his pre-IMF past, before losing the half-key to professional thief and expert pick-pocket Grace (Hayley Atwell). Meanwhile, Benji identifies an item of luggage containing a suspected explosive device sent by the Entity, and he races through the back of house baggage conveyer to locate it and defuse it. With the device counting down from four minutes with a series of riddles to answer, Benji is successful in disarming what turns out to be a fake nuclear device. Rattled by the Entity's seeming foresight and the appearance of Gabriel, Ethan goes after Grace alone, and tells Benji and Luther to abort their mission. Ethan is able to dodge past the Community agents with Grace evading Ethan who boards her planned flight to Rome. When in Rome however, she is picked up by the local Police revealing that she is wanted in several countries for theft, extortion, bribery etc. and is in possession of about a dozen different passports all bearing photographs of her likeness. 

In Rome, Ethan tracks down Grace by pretending to be her lawyer, before Community agents and Gabriel close in. After a lengthy high speed car chase through the streets and alleyways of Rome Grace escapes again, but Ethan is picked up by his team and Ilsa. With Benji and Luther providing support, Ethan and Ilsa infiltrate a party held by arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby), aka 'The White Widow' in Venice, hoping to find the buyer for the complete key, as well as what it unlocks. Grace is also present as is Gabriel. Grace delivers the half-key to Alanna while Ethan fails to talk Alanna out of selling the key. 

Gabriel delivers an ultimatum to Ethan, saying that he must choose which one of Grace or Ilsa is to die. The team scatters, with Ethan being chased down on foot by Paris (Pom Klementieff), a stone cold French assassin working for Gabriel. Ethan faces off in a gated at either end narrow alleyway against Paris and one of her colleagues, overpowering them both, but sparring their lives. Gabriel meanwhile knocks Grace out and kills Ilsa before Ethan arrives on the scene. He is devastated by her loss.

Grace is wracked by remorse over the death of Ilsa and is convinced to join Ethan's team. They prepare to board the Innsbruck-bound Orient Express train where Alanna plans to meet the buyer. Luther leaves for an off-grid location to investigate traces of the Entity on his hard drive. On the train, Gabriel kills the conductor, destroys the brakes and fires up the engine to gain maximum speed. He meets Denlinger, who proposes an alliance between himself and the Entity. Denlinger explains the complete key unlocks the chamber containing the computer of Sevastopol, a Russian submarine sunk by its own torpedo. An early version of the Entity was injected into the system with the task of sabotaging the submarine's stealth capability, but it instead tricked the Sevastopol into destroying itself. This early version is still on the submarine, and whoever can access it can devise the means to either control or destroy the Entity. Gabriel kills Denlinger and attempts to kill Paris to ensure only he knows about the key’s purpose. He further says to Paris that she will betray him to Ethan, because he spared her life. Grace reluctantly agrees to impersonate Alanna, as long as Ethan is standing right beside her in disguise, but the machine which 3D prints their face masks fails as Ethan's masks is being printed. Grace goes it alone disguised as Alanna and brings the complete key to the buyer, who turns out to be Kittridge. Though tempted to betray Ethan for a reward of US$100M and protection for her very good friend Grace, she sides with Ethan just as the bank transfer gives the command to accept or decline the transfer of monies, and so presses decline. She then pickpockets the key from Kittridge, and flees back up the train. 

Ethan, meanwhile, in constant radio contact with Benji is riding his motorbike alongside the Orient Express with the intention of jumping onto it when it slows down to take a bend in the tracks. Little do the pair know that Gabriel has sabotaged the train and it is accelerating uncontrollably. Ethan misses the crossing point and so Benji directs him up to the next point when he can intercept the train. This leads Ethan to ride up narrow mountain paths and fire trails, until he comes to a halt on the edge of a perilous cliff. Benji asks Ethan if he can see the train to which he responds with a yes, and then tells Ethan to jump off the cliff as he has a parachute on his back. And so Ethan does just that, and rides his motorbike off a cliff and successfully lands in the train saving Grace from being shot by Zola Mitsopolis (Frederick Schmidt), Alanna's brother, but Gabriel escapes with the key. 

Ethan overpowers Gabriel on the roof of the speeding train but is prevented from killing him by Community agents Briggs (Shea Whigham) and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis). Gabriel escapes the train and initiates a countdown to detonate the viaduct bridge crossing ahead. Grace and Ethan detach the locomotive from the other carriages and save the passengers, but they are not able to escape. 

Just as they are about to plunge down the broken bridge, they are saved by Paris, who is near death. Paris mutters to Ethan of the Sevastopol before falling unconscious. As Ethan flees the train with a one-man chute, he tells Grace that she can trust Kittridge and that she should join the IMF. Grace then informs Kittridge that she has chosen to join IMF. Ethan meets with Benji when he lands at the bottom of the valley and they drive off with the key that Ethan pickpocketed during the fight with Gabriel, who is seen very angry indeed that his precious key has been replaced with a Zippo lighter. 

With 'Mission : Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One' Writer, Producer and Director McQuarrie and Producer and star Cruise have crafted another non-stop, heart pounding action joy ride in this franchise that is now 27 years old, and for which Cruise has been playing the titular lead character for almost half his life. And at age 61 now, Tom Cruise does not seem to be letting up on the action set pieces as he prefers to work all his stunts, firmly in the belief that this is what the audience wants to see, and it's what gets bums on seats. And who can argue with that, because it seems to be paying off as 'Top Gun : Maverick' and early reviews of this latest 'M:I' offering would attest to. The film boasts a stellar cast who are all on point, a plot-line that is firmly planted in the present, well choreographed action set pieces that will keep you glued to the screen, stunning locations, a smattering of suspense, some occasional wry humour, and at a run time of just above 160 minutes that flies by and will never leave you wanting. My only criticism is all the angst ridden dialogue around 'The Entity' which if it is mentioned once, it is referenced a hundred times rendering it more like gobbledegook mumbo jumbo rather than the creation of a whole new world order that is implied. That said, next years 'Part Two' can't come soon enough.

'Mission : Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-