Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Is Excellent!

Truly, movie franchises these days are like wine. Some of them will turn slowly to vinegar as the years pass, leaving a sour and unpleasant taste in the mouth. Others will get horribly corked and end up with the nauseating palate of wet dog mixed with barbecued roadkill. But then there's a precious few, composed of just the right combination of elements that actually improve with age. Case in point, the Mission Impossible franchise that began way back in 1996, a time when the PlayStation 1 was the pinnacle of technology, the Spice Girls were topping the charts and Disney was still a wholesome, family-friendly company making quality animated movies. Now, it could have been just another forgettable 90s Tom Cruise action flick, but the Mission Impossible movies just kept coming, and despite a few missteps, the series eventually found its groove and blossomed into one of the best action franchises of the 21st century, consistently delivering complex storylines and death-defying action sequences, each one striving to outdo its predecessor. Which brings me neatly along to Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, a film saddled with an absolute ton of expectation and hype, delayed multiple times by a difficult production schedule and given the tough job of trying to salvage what's rapidly turning into a disastrous summer blockbuster season. But does it actually succeed? Does it live up to the standards of its predecessors? Does it deliver the action and tight storylines that we expect from a Mission Impossible flick? Does a 60-year-old Tom Cruise still have the staying power to cut it as a top-level action star? Tom Cruise just rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today. I think I can hold to the bike a little longer. **** yes. Just like Top Gun Maverick before it, Dead Reckoning is exactly the kind of movie we've been crying out for now more than ever. A fun, action-packed, smartly written piece of glorious, adrenaline-fuelled escapism that gives modern Hollywood a gigantic middle finger, starring a man who understands exactly what his audience wants and made by people whose only goal is to entertain the viewer from start to finish. This is the movie that Indiana Jones 5 wishes it could have been, and in more ways than one, but I'll come back to that one later. Suffice to say though, I had an absolute blast with Dead Reckoning. Yeah, there's a few little niggles here and there that hold it back from perfection, the dialogue could have been tightened up in places, the runtime's a bit longer than it needs to be and there's some slightly misfiring humour in places, but overall I think it's a fantastic movie and a worthy addition to the franchise. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join me for this mostly spoiler-free review. If you are disappointed or confused by this, the drinker will disavow all knowledge of your actions. This video will self-destruct after 5 seconds. So the movie kicks off with a Russian submarine on patrol beneath the polar ice cap. It's been fitted with an experimental new stealth system that allows it to operate basically undetected. Unfortunately, the system goes rogue and tricks them into launching a torpedo attack against themselves, ultimately sinking the boat and leaving the two halves of the system access key floating amongst the dead bodies. This is when we pick up with our main man, Ethan Hunt, who's been assigned to track down both halves of the key. You know, it's really quite lucky that all those dead bodies happen to float to the surface instead of being trapped inside the hull of the submarine forever. It's even more lucky that they somehow broke through the ice pack above them instead of getting eaten by marine predators. It's even luckier still that the two halves of the key happen to be physically kept on the two most senior officers instead of locked inside a safe deep in the ship. What a stroke of luck! Anyway, it turns out that the submarine attack was orchestrated by The Entity, an AI system designed to infiltrate any computer network anywhere on Earth. The Entity became so advanced that it eventually developed self-awareness and stopped obeying commands. Now it's acting in its own interests and because it knows everything about everyone, it's able to predict their actions and decisions before they even make them. You know, this all sounds very familiar. Anyway, whatever. The only way to stop it is to find both halves of the key and use it to access the system core on the sunken submarine. The CIA want to regain control of The Entity so that they can exploit its power, but because Ethan's already watched 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Terminator, The Matrix, Metropolis, iRobot, Blade Runner, Westworld and Age of Ultron, he reckons it's probably better to just destroy it. So he steals half the key, goes rogue and launches his own mission. Their first objective is in Abu Dhabi where they have to intercept the other half of the Not only does Ethan have to locate the seller, but he also has to contend with Grace, an international thief hired to steal the key. There's also Gabriel, a ruthless terrorist working on behalf of The Entity with dreams of taking over the entire world. And there's also a government task force dispatched to hunt Ethan down. Oh yeah, and The Entity itself even pitches in by ******* with their technology to slow him down. Needless to say, wacky shenanigans ensue and Ethan reluctantly ends up working with Grace to recover both halves of the key and save the world. But will they be able to stay one step ahead of their enemies? Will Ethan lose sight of his mission in order to settle a personal grudge against Gabriel? And will they all survive until the end? I said before that Dead Reckoning feels very much like the movie that Indiana Jones 5 wishes it could have been, especially at the box office. But when you break them down in story terms, they actually have quite a lot in common. An ageing male protagonist has to join forces with a feisty, untrustworthy younger woman in a globetrotting, action-packed race against time to recover two halves of a dangerous MacGuffin that could change the future of humanity if it falls in the wrong hands. The devil though is in the detail, and the execution here is what makes one movie a compelling, fun and well-constructed action flick, and the other a big steaming pile of elephant ----. For a start, there's the protagonist. Whereas Indiana Jones was just another burned out, pathetic old loser who just wanted to die, you know, like every other legacy hero in Lucasfilm projects, Ethan Hunt is still very much at the top of his game, able to run and fight and kick ass with the best of them. Yeah, you could probably put that down to Tom Cruise and his ego refusing to step aside and wait for the next generation but **** it, why should he? Just like with Maverick, he understands that what his fans really want to see is their favourite hero, slightly older and wiser perhaps, but still able to hold his own and be the unapologetic star of his own movie. And believe me, he's happy to give it to them. Then there's the female sidekick. Grace in a lot of ways is pretty much the same character as Helena from Dial of Destiny, the only difference being that unlike Helena, she's actually likeable, realistically competent, flawed, human, charming, beautiful, charismatic and played by an actress that was perfectly cast for the role. Honestly, I'm so happy to see Hayley Atwell finally get a high profile role outside of shitty MCU cameos and she definitely makes an impact here. Whereas Phoebe Waller-Bridge came across as gratingly smug, condescending, charmless and insufferable, Atwell's performance is seductive, effortless and confident. You never get the sense that she's trying to overshadow Cruise and the script never tries to elevate her above him. What a crazy notion in a modern movie. Then there's the MacGuffin at the heart of the story. The Dial of Destiny from, uh, Dial of Destiny never really felt like a tangible threat that the audience could grapple with. We were told that it was dangerous without being shown its power until the very end of the movie and even that power ended up being dumb as ****. But with Dead Reckoning, the MacGuffin that everyone's fighting over is in some ways also the main antagonist of the movie. The entity is a pretty unique threat in that it's not a person that can be fought and killed, it's everywhere and nowhere all at the same time, able to manipulate and rewrite systems, information, even reality itself to suit its needs. It can predict every outcome, see every contingency, anticipate every strategy and it uses those powers with deadly efficiency throughout the movie. And let's be real here, in a world increasingly preoccupied with questions over AI, fake news, online censorship and dubious fact checking, the idea of an enemy that can literally reshape history and public opinion doesn't seem quite as ridiculous as it might have done 10 years ago. And then there's the action scenes that this franchise has basically been built on. The action in Dial of Destiny generally felt stale, bland and lifeless, relying far too much on unconvincing CGI and dodgy stunt doubles. But the fights and set pieces of Dead Reckoning feel infinitely more real and impactful because for the most part, well, they are. Everyone knows by now about Cruise's insistence on doing his own stunts, sometimes to his detriment, and you can call it a dick-waving contest if you want, but that kind of ---- matters. Taking pride in your work and being willing to take risks to deliver a better experience for your audience matters. The tuk-tuk chase in Indy 5 bored me to tears because it was painfully obvious the whole thing was nothing but green screens and CGI, but an equally long chase sequence in Dead Reckoning was actually shot with real vehicles in real locations and it shows. Now, is this movie completely perfect? Of course it isn't. I mentioned before that the dialogue feels kind of stilted and clunky at times, spelling out things that we could already infer from what we've just seen and taking longer than necessary to get to the point. The film clocks in at 2 hours and 43 minutes, which I've got to admit, was about 20 minutes too long for me. Not that I was bored as such, but I was definitely ready for it to end. Having multiple factions going after the same objective and coming into conflict with each other is a pretty good concept that's driven plenty of movies like this in the past, but there's times when the script gets so convoluted with shocking revelations, double-crosses, new alliances and betrayals that it becomes difficult to keep track of who's working for who and why. And I don't know if this was a result of Covid restrictions during shooting, but it kind of feels like Benji and Luther get sidelined for the bulk of the film. Maybe because they were such a big part of previous movies, their lack of screen time here just feels kind of weird. Especially Ving Rhames, who talks and acts like his scenes were filmed in a completely different time and place. The fact that he's almost always sitting down and straight up says that he's gonna have to shut himself away from everyone else to focus on his work actually had me worried that the actor's got some kind of health issues going on. Hopefully I'm wrong on that one and it was just some weird editing quirk, but it did stick with me afterwards. There's also some slightly off-kilter attempts to work jokes and humour into certain scenes, a lot of which don't land nearly as well as they were supposed to. Sometimes it even interferes in actual dramatic moments, like a character about to be executed will get miraculously saved by Tom Cruise randomly blasting through the window in a parachute and in a movie as intricately plotted as this, moments like that just feel kind of… cheap. Now don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near as pervasive and obnoxious as the Marvel movies, but just like the excessive runtime and clunky dialogue, it did point to a script that's not quite as finely tuned as films like Fallout or Rogue Nation. Like I say, it was clearly a film made under pretty difficult circumstances, so I'm not gonna hold it against it too much, and none of it spoiled my enjoyment of what is, really, an excellent action film that's probably gonna dominate the summer box office. And it deserves to. Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Go away now.