Tom Cruise Outdoes Himself in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning part one

Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Frederick Schmidt, Cary Elwes, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma and Rob Delaney. Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Opens Wednesday everywhere in cinemas. 163 minutes. PG

In the late 1990s, when the “Mission: Impossible” movies were new and viewers of the original 1960s TV series still considered themselves young, Billy Crystal denounced the insane complexity of storytelling.

“I want you to to explain for me the plot of ‘Mission: Impossible’!” he asked star Tom Cruise, in one of Crystal’s spoof films at the Academy Awards.

Now it’s 2023 and the Impossible Missions Force are back for their seventh theatrical outing, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” with Tom Cruise returning as daredevil spy Ethan Hunt. The story gets more and more complicated, to the point where only half can be told this summer (part two due in 2024).

The 61-year-old Cruise who ignores his age still does his own outrageous stunts: jumping off a cliff, hanging from a train and showing Roman drivers clever ways to get around the traffic rules. It’s why we still go to his movies, including last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which grossed nearly $1.5 billion — though franchise newbie Hayley Atwell, who plays a slippery pickpocket, has given Cruise a run for gives his money in “Dead Reckoning.”

Spitting out the plot is still considered old-fashioned necessary, as are the taped mission guidelines, just-roll-with-the-latex masks and classic bump-bump-ba-da-bump-bump score based on Lalo Schifrin’s original composition from the 1960s.

Returning director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie delivers the spy yadda-yadda at the beginning of the film, while new CIA boss Eugene Kittridge, played by Henry Czerny (last seen in the first “M:I” movie in 1996) ), informing US government officials about espionage matters they should already know.

Kittridge amusingly explains the raison d’être from the Impossible Missions Force to the exasperated new Director of National Intelligence, played by Cary Elwes, who seems to have been living under a rock.

The IMF, Kittridge calmly asserts, has a tendency to operate outside standard federal rules and oversight and save the planet in its own unique way.

Good, duh. This won’t be news to loyal viewers of the action franchise, despite the five long years and one global pandemic since the previous IMF clambake, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”.

The simple truth of it, now more than ever, is chaos is the message.

“Dead Reckoning,” my new “M:I” favorite and the biggest blockbuster of the summer – it’s Cruising to a $250 million global opener this week – gives us more action and more reason to stop worrying about it. who, what, where and why of it all.

Just try to relax and enjoy the absurd real-life stunts of Cruise/Hunt and his fellow madmen as they defy physics, gravity and logic with increasingly dangerous action sequences, including the mother of all motorcycle jumps.

True to our current AI fears, the main villain isn’t even human this time around. It’s a sentient algorithm called “The Entity,” which looks like a child star’s painting, but foils plans to take over the world’s computers (and defense systems).

The Entity is aided by a grinning mortal sidekick named Gabriel (Esai Morales), who is more of an evil machine than his master and has sinister ties to Hunt’s troubled past. Gabriel epitomizes what Michael Caine famously said about the Joker in “The Dark Knight”: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

The same goes for some machines. But there may be a way to turn off the Entity’s engine, as Hunt and his cronies — including tech wizards Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and warrior/love interest Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) — be able to obtain both halves of a gem-studded cross-shaped key that looks like it was taken out of an ‘Indiana Jones’ movie.

The hunt for the two parts of the key leads Hunt to Abu Dhabi Airport, one of the film’s many global stops, where the hyperkinetic Hunt sprints atop the main terminal, apparently because it just looks so cool.

He encounters a master thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell) who is very good at getting what she wants, both from her wallet and from people. Grace isn’t sure she wants to help the IMF, even if it means saving the world.

Grace’s energetic presence makes her the film’s secret weapon and most valuable woman, in a femme-forward film that also stars, along with the versatile Ferguson, of another series newcomer, Pom Klementieff, who is a French assassin plays, and returning talent Vanessa. Kirby, reprising her “White Widow” character from “Fallout.”

During a laughable chase scene in the streets of Rome, Hunt and Grace are handcuffed together and required to drive a small yellow Fiat together, making moves not approved by the car manufacturer or the law. This and other witty encounters are reminiscent of the happy pairing of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in “Charade,” Stanley Donen’s bumbling action movie released 60 years ago this year, as well as the more recent matchup between Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh in the 007. movie ‘Tomorrow never dies’.

“Dead Reckoning” belongs first and foremost to its most dedicated player, actor/producer Cruise, who insists on performing his own stunts, even as they become increasingly threatening to life and limb.

The main one this time is a doozy: a motorcycle jumps off a 4,000-foot cliff and a dangerous parachute falls into a rocky ravine. Cruise managed to pull off this feat not just once, but eight times to get it just right for the IMAX-friendly digital cameras.

They call it his most dangerous stunt ever. He prepared for it for over a year, practicing with 13,000 motocross jumps and 500 skydives.

This not only seems impossible, but also downright insane. It makes for a nice night out at the cinema, on the edge of your seat.

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