Dead Reckoning Part One Is Brilliant Until You Remember It Is Only Half the Story
The setup
Ethan Hunt races to find two halves of a key that can control a powerful artificial intelligence known as the Entity, bringing him into conflict with a figure from his past and thief Grace.
When I first watched Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, it actually made me angry. I think most of that was just because I’m impatient and hated that it ended without properly finishing the story. Watching it again knowing the next movie was right around the corner though I saw it completely differently.
The pacing is brilliant. The story progresses perfectly, the action scenes are amazing and, because this is Mission: Impossible, Tom Cruise is once again trying his best to die for our entertainment.
The main threat this time is an AI called the Entity. We’ve seen the whole “AI turns against humanity” thing plenty of times before, but there’s a nice twist here because everyone actually wants control of it. Governments around the world want to use it for themselves, while Ethan seems to be the only person thinking maybe the terrifying all powerful AI should just be destroyed.
The Entity also has Gabriel acting as its human representative. He’s a decent villain and has connections to Ethan’s past, which makes everything much more personal.
Ving Rhames finally gets some proper material as Luther too. He’s been part of this franchise forever without always being given loads to do, but here he gets some genuinely emotional scenes and he’s used brilliantly.
Then there’s Hayley Atwell as Grace. Hayley Atwell is fantastic. Grace, however, is an absolute menace. Every time you think she couldn’t possibly make Ethan’s life any worse, she somehow manages it. At one point she literally leaves the bloke handcuffed to a steering wheel on a train track. Ethan nearly dies enough without somebody actively helping the process along.
The biggest thing for me though is how emotional this movie gets. We lose a character that I’d become genuinely invested in, and I still didn’t want to believe they were actually gone. I was basically hoping the next movie would pull a “somehow Palpatine returned” just to bring them back.
Dead Reckoning is an amazing film. Great action, ridiculous stunts, strong characters and much more emotion than I remembered from my first watch.
Positives
Hayley Atwell, the airport sequence, motorbike jump, train finale, Pom Klementieff, a genuinely different kind of threat.
Negatives
It feels like half a story, the Entity is sometimes over explained, Ilsa's role is frustratingly handled.
Verdict
Another excellent Mission: Impossible film, even if the Part One structure stops it feeling as complete as the franchise's very best entries.
