Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 review: Almost 3 hours of breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat stunts
The impossible stunts are dazzling but it’s the endless appeal of an old-fashioned movie star in Tom Cruise that is the highlight of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1
In cinemas
★★★½
The action-thriller Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, starring Tom Cruise, is almost three hours of breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat stunts. Were that its only mission – the have-to-see-it-to-believe-it action scenes – this seventh instalment in the MI franchise would score five out of five.
The absolute highlight involves Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise), Grace (Hayley Atwell), a glamorous pickpocket who enters his do or die world, the Orient Express, the Swiss Alps, a bridge and explosives.
It is a breathtaking sequence that should be seen on the big screen. It’s a credit to cinematographer Fraser Taggart, stunt co-ordinator Wade Eastwood and, of course the star himself, who famously does most of his own stunts.
Taggart deserves special mention as he stepped up to the top job after being an assistant cinematographer on the previous MI movie, Fallout (2018), to which the new one is a sequel.
Other spectacular scenes include Hunt, a motorbike, a parachute, a mountain top and, again, the Orient Express; and Hunt and Grace, handcuffs, a little yellow Fiat, the streets of Rome, a smiling French assassin named Paris (Pom Klementieff) and a four-wheel-drive the size of a tank.
The Fiat scene is thrilling and funny. It adds to the comedy that ripples between Hunt and his longstanding IMF comrades Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames).
“It sounds like treason,’’ Luther says when Hunt reveals a plan to make an impossible mission possible. “Or Monday,’’ Benji adds.
The main villain is also an intriguing, timely idea. “The Entity”, as it is called, is some form of artificial intelligence that has gone rogue. It has assumed sentience and is putting a dunce cap on the so-called intelligence networks of the human world.
Its human collaborator is a killer named Gabriel (Esai Morales), who goes deep into MI history and has a particular connection – and not a good one – to Hunt.
“He is a dark messiah, The Entity’s chosen messenger,’’ says Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the ex-MI6 agent who also has a personal connection to Hunt. There is a missing two-part cruciform key that, if found and assembled, might allow its user to control The Entity, or kill it. Hunt, ordered to find the key and deliver it into US hands, prefers the latter plan. Gabriel and just about everyone else, including the CIA, favour the former.
There’s intense interest from an arms dealer, Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby). She’s the daughter of arms dealer Max (Vanessa Redgrave) from the first MI movie in 1996.
This search for the key that will open the door to a new world dominance is the main plot of this 163-minute movie directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who has been in the MI chair since the fifth film.
Hunt is told the “status of this mission is higher than ever”, though I suspect he’s used to hearing that. The Entity is a “godless, stateless, amoral enemy”.
Unless, of course, the US can control it. Hence CIA agents join Gabriel, Paris and others in pursuit of Hunt as he pursues the key. His ultimate employer, the US government, doesn’t want him finding it and then having thoughts of his own.
“The man himself is expendable,’’ the agents are told.
Tom Cruise has been hailed as the saviour of cinemas post-pandemic. I think there’s some truth in that. Visually magnificent action movies such as Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and this new MI draw people back to box office.
Cruise turned 61 on the day this film had its Australian premiere at Sydney’s Darling Harbour. He was there and he said what he saw – a huge crowd gathered before a big screen – was the best birthday present.
He is a fine actor. He doesn’t bring 100 per cent of that skill to this movie, perhaps because he doesn’t need to. The performances of all involved are strong enough but not knockouts. There is little character development.
The plot starts with a mind-blowing idea – an AI with the power to take over the world – but falls short of developing it. Perhaps that will happen in MI Dead Reckoning Part 2, due in June 2024.
As with the other movie I review this week, Robots, making AI the baddie is interesting. Robots is zanier, MI is more spectacular. Neither comes close, in terms of exploring the human-AI relationship, to the first episode of season six of Black Mirror, Joan is Awful, now streaming on Netflix.
MI Dead Reckoning Part 1 is all about dazzling audiences with impossible stunts that will become talking points and the endless appeal of an old-fashioned movie star, an actor who is bigger than any movie. On this score, Tom Cruise is The Entity.
Robots (M)
Amazon Prime
★★★
Could a robot do your job better than you? It’s a question in today’s headlines as we watch, with a mix of enthusiasm and alarm, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.
In the timely American sci-fi dramedy Robots, starring Shailene Woodley and Jack Whitehall, the threat of job-stealing androids is old news.
It’s 2032 and human replicants have been in the workforce for a while, mainly doing menial jobs. There’s a darkly funny moment when one enters sleep mode while working on a garbage truck. The others toss him into the compactor.
Technically they’re not taking people’s pay cheques as they work for free. They are designed by Tesla but Elon Musk is not mentioned. My guess, given it’s a decade from now, is that he’s president of Mars.
In 2032 the real risk is that robots will live your life better than you do. And so we move to the two main characters: Elaine (Woodley), who is an alluring young gold-digger, and Charles (Whitehall), who is a handsome young womaniser.
Even though it’s illegal, each owns a robot who could be their identical twin: E2 (Woodley) and C2 (Whitehall).
Elaine sends E2 on dates with rich men; Charles sends C2 on dates with attractive women. The robots, far more charming than their masters, do all the preparation and then, on the next date, the human sleazes in.
It’s Charles, after meeting Elaine, who best sums up the human-robot relationship. “She’s a different level,’’ he tells C2. “I need you completely focused on getting her horizontal for me.”
C2 and E2 do what they are told … until they meet. Can robots fall in love? Can they have sex? This is 2032 remember.
“How am I doing?’’ C2 asks E2 as socket and USB stick connect. “The first two hours were fantastic,’’ she replies with a smile.
From this point we have two rebellious robots on the run with their human owners, who face jail time if caught with their digital doppelgangers, in pursuit.
This leads to a Westworld question. If the robots can feel love, might they also feel the desire for vengeance? Time will tell.
The two stars do a fine job of switching from human to robot. There are some neat comic touches, such as C2’s English accent being more pronounced than Charles’s.
Woodley received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in the TV series Big Little Lies (2017-19). Whitehall, who is English, is good as the straight man in the 2021 Dwayne Johnson-Emily Blunt comedy Jungle Cruise.
This 93-minute movie is written and directed by Ant Hines (who co-wrote Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) and Danish comedian Casper Christensen.
They take an intriguing idea – humans and robots being physically indistinguishable but emotionally different – and by and large make it work. There are some flat bits and some treacly moments about the value of being human, but otherwise it’s an enjoyable entertainment.
It’s timeliness is interesting as it’s based on a short story by the American writer Robert Sheckley that was first published in Cosmopolitan in 1973.
The filmmakers modernise it with Tesla, Tinder and – this is how the movie opens – the completion of the US-Mexico wall promised by Donald Trump.
As with Blade Runner being inspired by a 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick, it shows that this human-AI tension has been around for a while.
In 1968 it was speculative science fiction. The day after I watched Robots, the German newspaper group Bild announced 200 job cuts and said there would be more to come as it embraced “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
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