Mission: Impossible ~ Dead Reckoning Part 1

 

The thing to know before seeing the latest Tom Cruise / Christopher McQuarrie collaboration -- Mission: Impossible ~ Dead Reckoning Part One -- is it will be very much like their previous outings -- the other M:I films and Jack Reacher. That is to say, it will be a tremendous crowd-pleaser with off-the-chart stunts and chases, numerous cliffhangers and ample wit.

McQuarrie is an Oscar-winning screenwriter (The Usual Suspects) who knows good film stories are not made "good" by the crashes and body count but by the connective tissue that holds set pieces together in a sensible narrative. When a story is set in the world of spies and deception, it might be foolish to accept anything on "face value," especially in the case of Mission: Impossible, which has used masking, fakery and sleight-of-hand since its beginnings on '60s television.

In this episode, Cruise's Ethan Hunt and his crew of off-the-grid agents (Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson) are trying to find the missing half to a key that would unlock a mystery involving artificial intelligence and existential threats to world governments' security and commerce. The key is so critical to maintaining the balance of power that many nations have dispatched parties (Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby) to locate the key and answer the riddle of its purpose.

Typical of this series -- and most every other top-dollar actioner I can think of -- exotic locales factor into the story, if for no purpose other than to provide streets (or canals, in the case of Venice) through which Hunt and company (in this case, a highly skilled pickpocket named Grace played by Hayley Atwell) might race on foot or in vehicles.

Some of these pieces are more than a few beats too long -- the chase through Rome has some comedic moments but wears out its welcome after 10 minutes. I thought this was curious considering how sensitive McQuarrie seemed in the past to pacing and flow.

Still, Part One ends with a jaw-dropping train-crash escape that raises the bar on Cruise's famous stunting and audience demands for Part Two, to be released next year.