Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

The best Brosnan movie of the 1990s inadvertently released in 2023. If I leave aside the slightly WTF technophobic foundation and the chaotic motivations and donkey bridges arising from it, this is a king-sized portion of superbly constructed and charismatic action in which the climax aboard a train is the dominant feature. This is probably what Nolan’s take on Bond would look like. That’s good enough for me. I'm looking forward to part two, aka The Hunt for Red October. (07/13/2023)

Ethan Hunt protecting his women vs. an entity with the IQ of six thousand gym teachers. This is the realization of differing views on the form of higher good, as a frail old-school action skeleton aware that variations on Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme and an epic train crash, a must since Buster Keaton, help stimulate the viewer's subconscious. There are a few missteps (running across the roof of an Abu Dhabi airport just for a joke, a fight on a Venetian bridge with an unexpectedly ineffective emotional climax), and Esai Morales' gray mold can hardly compete with Cavill's musk. However, Christopher McQuarrie can comfortably say about the duo of Beautiful Dream Plastic Surgeons that in the 21st century, no one makes Bond films without Bond as well as they do. Hopefully, in Part Two, Holly will show us a proper Queeg. (05/09/2024)

The collaboration of the McQuarrie-Cruise duo is a well-established brand promising a modern take on old-school action in an edgy, thrilling and adrenaline-fuelled setting, and that is absolutely true this time as well. Many things could be praised, but the best way to describe it is that even though we've seen chases through ancient buildings in a small car or action in an out-of-control train countless times, the way it is paced, plotted and delivered here is both breathtaking and riveting in a way that will make you sweat your shirt off from the sheer dodging and clenching of fists. A genre film that defines (though does not redefine) the genre to the core. Too bad about the apparent lack of closure and the bland villain. Hats off and pure enthusiastic curiosity about where they want to take it in the finale. (07/08/2023)

At first glance, Dead Reckoning Part One is the weakest instalment of the franchise, as it paradoxically offers half the attractions of the best of the previous instalments in the longest runtime. The car chase in Rome is nothing to write home about and the train scene is lifted from the first Mission: Impossible, plus there is a hopped-up version of the most thrilling scene from The Lost World. BUT! On the second viewing, I found Dead Reckoning Part One to be the most entertaining of all the Mission: Impossible movies thanks to its plot. The way the movie’s subject perfectly coincides with the threat of artificial intelligence; the constellation of characters from the previous instalments, including Kittridge from the first one; the new ultimate bad guy Gabriel, whom Ethan Hunt has double the reason to hate more than anything else in the world; the sincere emotion of the scene on the Conzafelzi bridge in Venice; the new beauty Hayley Atwell, who shares perfect chemistry with Tom Cruise; and plenty of humorous and imaginative details that dress up the scenes that seem less than innovative at first glance – the airport, the car chase in Rome, the incorporation of the well-known motorcycle jump into the train and the almost cinephilically orgiastic climax that transforms the aforementioned scene from The Lost World into an absolute blockbuster thrill. And we’re only halfway through the movie. If Part Two has the build-up that Cruise and McQuarrie know it must have, Dead Reckoning will become the alpha instalment of the franchise and will possibly set a new course for the multi-part delivery of Ethan Hunt’s future impossible missions. The news that Tom plans to keep making them until he’s eighty made my day. (07/12/2023)

HE’S RUNNING AGAIN, at a nice heroic pace, knees right up (yeah, right Tom, we know you're an eternal youngster, you don't have to keep reassuring us so blatantly). The film itself is a succession of good action sequences, glued onto a stupid skeleton that seems to have fallen out of a spy movie from the 60s, the ones that were so beautifully parodied later. I found the concept of the Entity utterly ridiculous. (10/12/2023)