Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1 review: Tom Cruise revs up adrenaline overload

If franchise fatigue is a thing, Tom Cruise would certainly be the last person to know anything about it. For about the seventh time in the last 27 years, the stamina-defying Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, the leader of the Impossible Mission Force, a super-secret American spy agency, in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One.

Reuniting with director Christopher McQuarrie for the third time, Cruise has nearly everything going for him in the film: his stamina remains otherworldly, the stunts continue to be death-defying and the action set pieces showstopping.

If that’s not all, Cruise is also up against a formidable opponent (a “godless, stateless, amoral enemy”) in the first chapter of the two-part finale: Artificial Intelligence (AI). As the kids would say, this is not a film, it is indeed cinema.

The race against time 

Let’s get the formalities out of the way, by which I mean the film’s plot. Here, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt must get his hands on an experimental AI programme nicknamed “The Entity” that has gone rogue and might just be a precursor to a global catastrophe. As it so happens, The Entity is controlled by a golden key that has been cut into two halves by sly master thief Grace (Hayley Atwall).

Hunt and his colleagues Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg) reunite to hunt for one half of the key (the other half is naturally, with old ally Ilsa) but they aren’t the only ones in pursuit. Joining them are a bunch of government officers, an assassin (Pom Klementieff) and an underworld arms dealer (Vanessa Kirby), each of whom want to stake their claim on The Entity.

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This race against time is made all the more poignant given that Hunt is also forced to confront a ghost from his own past (Esai Morales) who, as it turns out, might know a thing or two about their mission.

Spotlighting Tom Cruise’s star power 

Co-written by McQuarrie and Erik Jenderson, the fairly straightforward plot is stretched into both exhausting and enthralling directions, in part to sustain the suspense for the second film that is scheduled for next year (though now there is talk about possible future movies). But then again, the plot is nearly incidental in such a franchise.

This is a film held together by the kind of gimmicky filmmaking that condenses time and logic to result in wide-eyed astonishment. This is a film that knows very well that even the mere idea of its existence is frankly irresistible to almost everyone as much as it is to its own star.

Much of it is because unlike Fallout (2018), McQuarrie doesn’t seem as interested in stamping his distinctive style to the proceedings as much as he seems invested in making the proceedings effective, loosening Cruise up to aptly achieve that balance. In that sense, there are no new surprises in the new MI instalment— in fact, McQuarrie assembles the film more as a fan than like a maker, distilling it down to its greatest pleasures.

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Think a tempting setup amped up by breathless energy, crowd pleasing throwbacks to the past MI films, including some direct Brian De Palma referencing, and more importantly, the utter devotion to showcasing the star power of Tom Cruise.

An audacious finale 

Nowhere does the film’s stargazing feel more evident than in its action choreography, meant simply to lovingly extend the limits of what Cruise, in the audience’s imagination, can withstand. A spectacular handcuffed car chase in Rome comes after a long-drawn-out desert battle.

Another extended chase starts off on a bike before finding its groove on a train, its manic design matched by the intensity on Cruise’s face as it builds up to an audacious finale. Indeed, the film’s most arresting set piece is its most publicized — one where we witness Hunt smoothly sailing off a cliff on a motorbike and a parachute.

It’s the kind of lunatic leap, a real stunt performed by a real actor on a real location, that is trademark MI — unnecessary and satisfying at the same time. That is to say, the reward here is the excitement that courses through your whole body as you watch Cruise defy gravity and death, performing real stunts once again.

It helps that McQuarrie is the kind of filmmaker who keenly understands that this is the kind of film where generating excitement is really the only reward. Everything else is just noise.