Review- Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One

 

The Mission Impossible films have always been great cinema events and this seventh installment manages to outdo its predecessors not by radically re-working the tried and tested formula but by pushing it just a bit more. So there are breathtaking chases, awesome stunts, lots of double crossing and a basic plot that enables so many different avenues to run from it. It’s a hybrid of some of cinema’s oldest tricks combined with a story inspired by today’s headlines and it works so well it could be a contender for film of the year.

 Some spoilers after the break...

The stakes are high, as always. Here we have a key in two parts which if joined will provide access to an AI system- known as The Entity- which can control everything, fake everything and is generally the worst everyone thinks might happen with artificial intelligence. Its torn right out of today’s headlines- at the screening I went to there was even a trailer for another AI inspired film- yet does provide a sobering thought for anyone who found Indiana Jones’ similar McGuffin a little too unlikely. The results make for excellent cinema and the use of as many practical and stunt effects as possible ensures the viewer feels the impact of every bump, jolt, punch, crash and collapse. The already iconic motorbike off the edge of a cliff stunt isn’t even the most breathtaking moment; it’s that kind of film.

 How to keep a franchise going though when people know what to expect? The opening is like the title sequence of a tv show but from there the familiar becomes stretched even further as the film finds new ways to keep us interested. There can’t be many film series that reach their seventh installment in such good shape. It’s a busy narrarive though essentially a series of capers as the keys fall or don’t fall or appear to fall into the clutches of either Ethan Hunt and his team or their pursuers. Each location serves as a backdrop for chases and fights.  One aspect in particular working in the film’s favour is its use of an orchestral soundtrack eschewing pop hits incongruously scoring chases and having good old fashioned action music. It’s a good choice because without distracting song lyrics it becomes part of the action collage.

In fact there is much that is traditional about this film and its all the better for it. After so many cinema trips to see people firing colourful static at each other or flying about above the clouds or talking about destiny and far flung Universes, this movie is reassuringly comprised of nuts and bolts. It’s wheels, locks, pistons, wheels, things we can identify with. And yes while scenes of battling spaceships can be exciting they are rarely as thrilling as white knuckle dash around narrow streets or a bike leaping (for real) off a clifftop. Every scenario is worked to it's absolute limit but never in a dull way.  Even what is essentially people following each other around an airport concourse becomes tense. 

Given that this sort of movie is never going to have in depth characters, there is a surprisingly strong sense of these people without reams of dialogue. This of course comes partly from the bonds built up over previous films. When he’s not engaged in speedy action, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is rather less of an acting stretch but has enough charm to hold the centre of the movie. Making a real impression this time round is Haley Attwell playing a lively English thief who goes by the name of Grace. We have seen this sort of character before (oddly another similarity with the current Indiana Jones movie) but Attwell provides a lot more light and shade. Along for the ride too are Ving Rhames’ pragmatic Luther, Simon Pegg’s nervy but clever Benji and Rebecca Ferguson’s loyal Isla.  There is also an excellent pair of antagonists courtesy of Esai Morales’ Gabriel (suave but mean) and, almost stealing the whole film, Pom Klemntieff’s Paris whose brutal exterior is later given an interesting development.  

It helps too that the stakes are high simply because of current concerns over the reach of Artificial Intelligence. It is normal for any new technology to generate worries but if real AI can do anything like half of what this film extrapolates then there are reasons for those concerns. These are laid out on more than one occasion; its interesting to find such a potential dystopian future so relatively close.

All of the set pieces are tremendous doses of adrenalin, any of which might climax a lesser action movie. They encompass close combat in a confined space, sleight of hand, a terrific car chase that sprouts an unexpected joke and manages to combine tension and laughs. There is more dramatic stuff too- an altercation in Venice adds a darkness to some beautiful locations. Then there’s the movie’s signature scene at the climax. Its mayhem on the Orient Express for a thrilling slice of action that must last at least half an hour (there is no breathing space to check!) and pretty much does everything it is possible to do in an action sequence in, on top and around a moving train. The climax to this is one of the best such scenes I’ve ever seen depicted adding one thing after another to the peril of our heroes yet always using the mechanics, furniture and dimensions of the train so we think- improbable perhaps- that it could happen.

 Its been an odd summer for films so far with each tentpole release hammered by critics and underperforming at the box office with the exception of the animated Across the Spiderverse. By giving us more of that cool Mission Impossible formula but amping it up even further this may well finally be the action film that performs as hoped for because you really need to see it.