Tripwire Reviews Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

Cruise Control

Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman checks out Mission Impossible– Dead Reckoning Part One. Warning: a few little spoilers ahead…

Mission Impossible– Dead Reckoning Part One
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Frederick Schmidt, Charles Parnell, Rob Delaney, Cary Elwes, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss

There’s a brief scene in Tom Cruise’s latest super-farrago that sums up this summer’s tentpole release rather well. Hiding out after an extensive car chase, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, with his two lieutenants in tow (Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg) declares to serial thief and martial arts expert (well, everyone’s a martial arts expert in this movie) Grace (Hayley Atwell) that she must become invisible –  a “ghost”, like them, or face certain death. “You’ve no alternative”, states a particularly stern Cruise, the only actor on board who’s taking matters seriously. It’s the only moment in the movie which attempts to inject some depth and drama that doesn’t involve things exploding or crashing, but it fails to develop any credibility or engagement. The action’s the thing, as are the exotic locations (well, nothing’s exotic anymore, but this is retro sub-Bondery, so Rome, Venice and the Orient Express will do). And on that point alone, the film scores.

As with all its series predecessors, it’s an unpretentious outing, but that is not a criticism. After all the vain attempts by the mavens overseeing the MCU to include or reference elements from “proper cinema” in their product, while shoehorning in redundant themes, it’s actually quite a relief to have an old-school summer blockbuster like this one that doesn’t irritate or tax your brain with such fripperies. Above all this is a movie that can only be experienced on its own terms.

Ethan Hunt gets charged by his IMF superior to track down The Entity, an AI system that can only be accessed by two interlocking keys. Career thief Grace obtains one of them, and is consequently pursued by Hunt’s team, intelligence agents and various terrorists. So the chase across continents begins, with plenty of double-crossing, state of the art tracking software, and lots of expertly-staged car chases that oddly enough take place outside or through tourist destinations, like the Colosseum or Spanish Steps. Everyone looks pristine and wears haute couture, while the villains look either archly psychotic or ineffably smug. Yep, it’s all rather familiar.

All in all, it’s quality schlock, entertaining mindless fun that presses the odd nostalgia button for older viewers, the proceedings being somewhat reminiscent of an episode of ancient ITC series like The Protectors, or maybe The New Avengers, only with much higher production values, obviously. It’s often vapid and far too long, while the Entity is a particularly silly MacGuffin. Some of the acting is certainly on the ropey side, with Ving Rhames murmuring his expository lines like he’s reading a phone book, while Simon Pegg, the fanboy who keeps on ending up in movies like this one (very meta, if you think about it) is game enough as the perennially anxious boffin / plot device. But then such pared-down, one-note performances come with the territory.

Maybe the newly installed luxury seats (very comfy) at the refurbished Leicester Square Odeon have influenced this review into being a wee bit more favourable, but this is good mindless entertainment, which benefits from having zero pretensions. It’s an old-school throwback blockbuster, which (at two hours forty-five minutes) demands shedloads of popcorn and removing all your critical faculties. The finale is particularly engrossing –  a kinetic, vertiginous, CGI-adorned bit of innovation reminiscent of classic disaster flicks.  A welcome slice of unapologetically genrebound hokum then, and hats off to Cruise for doing some pretty dangerous stunts – if anything, that should be the talking point of this movie. See you next year for part 2 (yes indeed, there’s a lot more of this to come).

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is in cinemas from this Monday. Here’s the film’s trailer