Five years after the formidable falloutfinally comes to us Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One by the same Christopher McQuarrie and with the indefatigable Tom Cruise. Without equaling its predecessor, this seventh M:I ranks among the best opuses of the franchise started 27 years ago by Brian de Palma. Christopher McQuarrie has taken it in hand since Rogue Nation, producing, directing, scriptwriting. And by finding Tom Cruise, with whom he collaborated among others on the jack reacher And Edge of Tomorrow.
This complicity is felt in Dead Reckoning, Part One. Perhaps too much, when the tandem indulges in a crazy motorized chase or a frantic run. But everything is redeemed hands down (very hands down, in fact) during the final sequence, on board and all around (above, below, in the air, on a bridge, hanging from the ceiling…) of theOrient Express. The kind of scene that just can’t be too long. And which allows a satisfactory conclusion while waiting for the second part of the diptych, scheduled for next June – but which could be a collateral victim of the writers’ strike, as the first was delayed by COVID-19.
Leading to this thrilling finale, a chase across the planet (we are amazed, the photography is magnificent) in order to get our hands on a cruciform key made up of two pieces which, nested one inside the other, allow to master a new form of artificial intelligence. Which has (of course) become “conscious”, evolves, has the capacity to invade any operating system and, thus, to transform facts, data at will. Reality. What is true? What is wrong?
This combination ” high tech / ” low-tech (here, a Machiavellian AI and there, a simple key) fits perfectly with the very concept of Impossible mission where time-tested classics (dear to the heart of Tom Cruise) – time bombs, masks, chases of all kinds, mind-blowing stunts – sit alongside cutting-edge technology. And this, in the scenario as on the screen.
Run and laugh
Added to this is the humor of a franchise that bets, yes, on the action, but which is anchored in the links between the members of the MIF. Links and members less exploited here, and that’s a shame. We would have, alongside Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), taken more of Benji and Luther, embodied by the solid and endearing Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames.
Around this hard (and tender) core evolve familiar faces: the royal Rebecca Ferguson as a former MI6 agent; and Vanessa Kirby as a high-flying arms dealer. Among the ranks of newcomers, Hayley Atwell does well in the shoes of a thief with… let’s say, fluctuating allegiances; Pom Klementieff sometimes takes herself for Harley Quinn in the skin of a ruthless assassin. And then, coming out of the troubled past (and more or less well exploited) of Ethan Hunt, Esai Morales, sinister mine and dark look, embodies a conventional, banal villain. Who, on the other hand, seems to be working with a team operating somewhat in the same mode (complementary and shitty) as that of Hunt. It promises for the future.
In fact, after Top Gun: Maverick and this first part of Dead Reckoning, Tom Cruise has a good chance of achieving a hat trick next summer by climbing a third time to the top of the summer box office. Run, Tom, run!