Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

What’s Good: The constant effort of intriguing the viewers through either the action or twists or the fond memories of the franchise, almost everything works in the film’s favour

What’s Bad: Despite being 2 hours 43 minutes long, Eddie Hamilton’s editing is breezy but if I’ve to nitpick, I’ll chop off the mini Venice romantic montage between the two leads

Loo Break: If your show starts late, you’ll get stuck for 3 hours in that audi and you’ll definitely need a break even if everything is almost perfect

Watch or Not?: Even if you haven’t seen a single Mission: Impossible film, make sure to make this your first one because it’ll introduce you to one of the greatest action franchises led by a true-blue superstar

Language: English (Dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu in India)

Available On: Theatrical Release

Runtime: 2 Hours 42 Minutes

User Rating:

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), god bless his forefathers to keep ‘Hunt’ as his second name for the reason he continued his hunt to kill the last bad guy on the planet and this time it’s AI. Yep, the thing that has inspired Billionaires like Zuck & Musk, makes its way (yet again) to the world of cinema and this time it’s called ‘The Entity’.

Hunt is looking for two halves of a key that will unlock something, what? Only one guy knows Gabriel (Esai Morales) and you guessed it right, he’s also looking for whatever Mr. Ethan is. Hunt crosses his path with old buds Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg) & Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), while he faces an ambiguous frenemy in Grace (Hayley Atwell) to figure everything out about the Keys and the importance of how “Whoever controls AI controls truth.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Movie Review: Script Analysis

Christopher McQuarrie brings in the masterpiece Band Of Brothers’ writer Erik Jendresen who beautifully layers McQuarrie’s ‘A’ (jaw-dropping Action) with its ‘smart as a tack’ ‘I’ (Intelligence) making the AI that actually works for the film. Fraser Taggart who has mainly been in the Second unit of the camera team for some great action films like John Wick: Chapter 2, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and Doctor Strange gets promoted to be a Cinematographer & oh my god he unleashes ‘God Level’ camerawork to constantly assist the batsh*t crazy action set-pieces.

Be it the Call Of Duty-inspired sequences or giving Cruise & Atwell a minuscule Yellow Fiat 500 to compete with the bad guys’ mammoth tank-like MUVs making for a pretty entertaining chase episode where you can literally feel every hit of the car. If you’re smart enough, you already know you’ll watch this in IMAX because that’s where you’d unlock this film’s optimal potential. Despite India being mentioned twice by this film’s characters indicating how powerful our country is, it’s still behind in getting the genuine IMAX experience (Crying in the corner with Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer).

McQuarrie humours this up better than the previous MI instalments, be it Simon Pegg’s Benji wearing a seatbelt post putting his car to self-drive or the thought of putting a Yellow Fiat 500 in front of a humongous tank-like MUV, the film is cleverly funny. The climax train sequence will surely take back Bollywood enthusiasts to a similar attempt made by Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan. This, of course, is a notch above thanks to the detailing in its writing backed with a half-baked execution. It misses the mark because of patchy CGI shots which bursts the bubble of being a part of the film’s action. Yes, the motorbike-cliff sequence is as epic as it’s being marketed as, making it one of the most immersive spectacles to watch on the big screen.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Movie Review: Star Performance

From making the viewers watch the action to making them actually feel it, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is back to give the worth of every last penny you pay to watch cinema on the ‘big screen’. He turned 61 this year (though he started to shoot this when he was 57), this man IS the AI. He along with Keanu Reeves aren’t humans, they’re a concept. The concept of how well any human can keep him/herself if he/she decides to.

Hayley Atwell moves from being Peggy Carter to be the kind of superhero herself who plays Jerry to Tom Cruise’s Tom (see, what I did there?) and her loyalty to anyone is amazingly ambiguous making her Grace extremely intriguing to keep a hold of. Esai Morales mystifies the bad guy Gabriel & he manages to do it with the support of The Entity (bad AI).

Ving Rhames’ Luther, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa & Simon Pegg’s Benji are there for ‘nostalgic’ purposes which serve pretty well. Vanessa Kirby’s Alanna brings in the desired oomph she came within Fallout. Henry Czerny’s Eugene Kittridge is gifted with a couple of twists and an impactful monologue which he delivers masterfully. Pom Klementieff’s Paris leaves a mark without saying much until her very concluding scene, but when she does, it all falls into place.