Preamble

Perhaps more then any other week this year, typing this preamble in preparation for my review of the latest Mission: Impossible has been therapeutic. Without going into it all, some elements in my personal life have gone “all pear shaped” as some of us Brits like to say sometimes, and the result has left me feeling quite tired. But the desire to write a blog post that’s hopefully engaging and informative is one of my few constants, like seeing the sun everyday. It fundamentally keeps me going and makes me strive to do better (even if the path can seem endless and rocky). All I can say is thank you for indulging me.

So, Mission Impossible. Like with a few things, I’ve been writing about lately, this is a franchise that’s had little to no bandwidth. Aside from briefly writing positively about the last entry, Fallout, I’ve not written much about the series (if at all). But that changes today. Before we get to the jump, have you seen Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One (try saying that 3 times)? Let me know in the comments below.

Review

Mission: Impossible is a curious action franchise. Initially, it felt like a tug of war between the auteurist vision of its celebrated directors (Brian De Palma and John Woo) and a star vehicle for its main star, Tom Cruise, whose purpose seems to be performing death-defying stunts with boyish enthusiasm. The best films in the series have been the ones that have paired a director’s stylistic flourishes and Cruise’s appeal as a movie star. In the grand scheme of the franchise, Dead Reckoning- Part One is overwrought and preposterous, but it captures enough of the indelible Neo-Hitchcockian spirit that initially defined the series.

The first in the two-parter story is about Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) search for a McGuffin that holds the key to an experimental artificial intelligence known as the “Entity.” As time goes on, the program becomes more and more sentient by being able to predict the moves of Hunt and his team. The longstanding agent crosses paths with a thief known as Grace (Hayley Atwell), who may be his ticket to succeeding in his mission.

On the page, Dead Reckoning- Part One is ambitious. At once, it’s filled with an unexplored backstory for Ethan Hunt, discussions about AI and asking a fundamental question that’s never been asked in the series, which is what it takes for someone to become an IMF agent. On the whole, one of these elements succeeds.

This comes in the introduction of Grace, who challenges Ethan as an equal and player in the overarching plot. In fact, it can be greatly argued that the film is about how she comes to accept the proverbial “Your mission, should you choose to accept it” phrase that’s defined the series. In this regard, the screenplay is excellent at laying down the tracks of circumstances and potent emotions that get someone from a place of criminality to being part of a team. Hayley Atwell is also excellent in portraying the changing emotions and loyalties of a character, who is supposed to keep audiences on their toes. Grace also acts as a piece of franchise revisionism insofar as taking Thandie Newton’s professional thief character (Neya) from Mission Impossible II, and making her a credible supporting character, as opposed to a Bondian-styled leading lady that’s tossed between two men.

It’s a shame that the rest of the screenplay proves to be a messy and uninteresting affair. Part of this comes from a tiring amount of exposition that seeks to explain everything as opposed to letting the audience feel. There was never a time in the film where the threat of the Ai made me afraid for Cruise’s Hunt or his team. Instead, it felt like a contrivance for dramatic stakes to be constantly written or rewritten at will. The concept never really felt thematically interesting either, with characters often resorting to trite discussions about control and power to create some sort of philosophical weight. This aspect is paired with a sketchily developed wrinkle to Ethan Hunt’s backstory in the form of a murderous former associate who never feels human.

It’s quite a wonder that the direction and individual set pieces provide the film with a lot of its spark. Part of the reason why the first Mission Impossible remains my favourite is De Palma’s direction that paired with Cruise to create atmospheric and emotive sequences that spoke to the character and his dangerous occupation.

Some sequences in Dead Reckoning- Part One have this same power. There’s a particularly tense sequence in a nightclub that’s blocked with precision and sharpness to make the current threat feel credible and immediate. Also, during this scene, Cruise’s Hunt becomes the embodiment of “the bomb under the table” from Alfred Hitchcock’s lesson on tension, as the audience waits with bated breath for him to explode into action. These instances of a testy, human Cruise paired with exacting direction (via close-ups and Dutch angles) make the film a treat.

By the same token, the Neo-Hitchcockean direction manifests in small throw-away moments that are subtle markers for plot points and elements that cause tension. But they also come to the fore in confined and taut dialogue sequences where characters can strike out like a cobra with the knowledge they know. Moments like this reminded me of the threat of Ethan’s world and the captivating direction of De Palma’s work.

The construction of the action set pieces is inventive too. There’s one in the middle involving Hunt and a new character called Paris (played with frenzied glee by Pom Klementieff), which has the claustrophobia and immediacy of a found footage film that’s been shot on a high-end iPhone. And a long extended sequence on a train at the tail end of the movie is excellent for its retching up of tension and sheer overwhelming escalation of the situation the characters find themselves in.

In this way, Cruise and director/co-screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie have matched the effortless imagination of the action set pieces that have graced prior Mission movies. It’s just a shame that they’re stuck between an inconsistent screenplay whose sole great idea gets lost among of flurry of an overcooked and awkwardly constructed premise. This is one of those rare instances where the film score (composed by Lorne Balfe) is close to injecting something baggy on the page, with a sense of weight (via an ominous and piercing theme comprised of violins) for the Entity.