Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One: Movie Review

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson,  Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby
Director: Christopher McQuarrie

The seventh Mission: Impossible movie has a lot going for it - but only if you've managed to avoid all the marketing for the film, and the breathless reporting of how far Cruise went for his director and for his audience.

In this latest, plot is largely secondary to a film that exists to throw action sequence after action sequence at the wall and hope it distracts you from a weaker than normal plot and some truly awfully po-faced dialogue.

When Ethan Hunt is tasked with finding the two pieces of the film's McGuffin, the Cruciform, he finds his team is thrown into a mission they don't quite have all the pieces for and an outcome they can't predict. Tying it all together is the threat of a rogue AI that's out to change the world as it becomes "a self-aware truth-eating digital parasite" and a thief caught in the middle of it all (Hayley Atwell's propulsive Grace).

But with elements of the past coming back to haunt Hunt, this could be one mission too far for those he cares about.

There's no denying the synergy between Christopher McQuarrie and star Tom Cruise ensures much of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One's action into life as duplicitous men plot in the background for their own nefarious ends and an enemy known only as The Entity rises up.

However, the set pieces, as incredible as they are (particularly a yellow Fiat-set chase that takes you into the heart of the action), lurch from one to the next with po-faced portentous dialogue that serves only to show how strong the spectacle is and how weak the story elements are as a cohesive whole. Coupled with an extremely flat ending, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One feels like an exercise in hollow blockbuster execution.

Cruise gives his all, and it shows; his Hunt never quite feels in control this time and while he's restrained from letting loose, his physicality bursts through the screen. With more humorous touches scattered throughout this time, there's a frustrating element of going rogue that brings a freshness, but never feels fully committed.

Atwell is mightily impressive as the lithe Grace, a perfect foil for Cruise's Hunt throughout. A spectacular addition to the series, she brings humour and the action chops the character needs to spark with the leading man. Klementieff also deserves praise for her maniacal villain who leads much of the first half, before falling to the side in the second.

But the emotional tissue connecting the parts is weaker than expected, and at least one death lacks the heft it needs - or even deserves.

Disappointingly, many of the regulars are sidelined, and with a limp conclusion, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One feels like a fumble in the franchise, unable to scale the heights of Fallout. 

There's no denying its slickness and its desire to entertain, but perhaps in some parts, the series needs a more gritty edge and the ability to surprise and thrill once again. It feels more like a sum of its parts, than a cohesive whole, and that is massively disappointing - especially as not once does it feel like the stakes are as high as those talking about the stakes feel they are.