Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is on a new mission, with world-altering stakes.
A new intelligence AI has gained sentience, and has infiltrated the world’s digital infrastructure.
Now Ethan is on the run after a mysterious key which holds the you-know-what to battling the new entity.
I have been a little weary of the recent direction of the Mission franchise.
One of the joys of the series was its constant change of directorial vision and sense of reinvention.
Since 2015, Chris McQuarrie has been the creative force behind the series, and his work on Rogue Nation and Fallout saw the series solidify its status as prime action franchise.
After two movies, this is the first time it feels like the creative well is starting to run dry.
On one of his appearances on the Empire podcast McQuarrie made the observation that movies (specifically would-be commercial blockbusters) depended on emotion rather than exposition.
With Dead Reckoning, it feels like he has failed to follow his own advice.
The film is weighed down with portentous, long-winded monologuing about the IMF, Ethan Hunt and the state of the world.
And it is often hard to track key emotional high points, including the death of a popular character.
The thing that saves the film is its third act, an extended set piece with so many variables and escalations that it recalls the delirious Burj Khalifa sequence in Ghost Protocol.
It also saves the film. Not that the action leading up to the third act is bad - the car chase features some great gags - but it lacks a strong sense of momentum or invention.
The cast are fine, although they feel like delivery devices for overlong, repetitive dialogue.
It is great to see Hayley Atwell in a major release as a lead player - although I wish she had a little more to do.
Esai Morales is a fine actor, although his motivations and machinations are obscure and hard to follow.
A personal highlight was Pom Klementieff, of Guardians of the Galaxy fame, as a hired gun.
Her glee during the film’s demolition derby of a car chase recalls the villainous femme fatales of older Bond movies.
There is an obvious debt to Bond in the MI film series, but this film feels particularly obvious - during the car chase, Ethan and Grace are handcuffed together.
Klementieff’s role feels like an evolution of the Bond femme fatale, especially May Day (Grace Jones) of A View to a Kill.
So is it bad? Dead Reckoning (Part One) is bloated and lacks focus, and the characters feel chained to the byzantine plotting rather than internal motivations. Unlike a lot of the previous instalments, the climax is the strongest aspect of the film - not necessarily in terms of dramatic catharsis, but as spectacle with clear stakes.
Overall, the film just comes across as tired and weighed down by its own scale. Production on Part Two is already underway, but one cannot help but wonder if the franchise would have benefited from a new name in the director’s chair.
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