Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

 

An interesting thing happened last night at the Mission Impossible Fan Event we attended. After the two short promo reels that were part of the event, the wrong movie started running. "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is a joint Paramount/Disney production but when we saw the Disney Studio credit logo, we knew this was not Mission Impossible and that the wrong IMAX film was running. Two dozen people got up immediately to inform the management, but it still took nearly fifteen minutes of running the wrong movie before it was corrected. That accident allowed us to see the difference between a completely CGI train fight, which would later compare unfavorably to the practical train fight in the movie we came to see. This was an inadvertent reveal of how meticulous director/writer Christopher McQuarrie and star/producer Tom Cruise are about making their movies. They sure put in the extra effort to make it work for the audience.

"Dead Reckoning" has the kind of plot that could easily befuddle you the first time through. I know a lot of people had difficulty with the first of the Mission Impossible movie plots, and those folks may be happy to learn they are not the only ones who can get confused by the events in these movies. I've got a pretty good grasp on some of the elements but I will probably need a re-watch to clarify some other points of the story. I don't think audiences will be put off however. We know that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is the good guy, and that his team can be trusted, although uncertainty about Ilsa Faust is understandable. This is the third film in the series in which Rebecca Ferguson's disavowed MI-6 agent has been a part. After "Fallout" we are pretty confident she is on our side, and that's a good thing because she is incredibly competent and formidable. 

The other members of the team return and they continue to provide both humor and some grounding for the series. Simon Pegg is as always, a gas who can lighten up a situation with an ironic acknowledgement of the difficulty in front of the team at any time. Ving Rhames brings calm and gravitas to his scenes and makes the tech crew a lot more humanly relatable. The newest member of the team is Haley Atwell, who gets involved with the team and is completely unreliable from the start. Atwell has experience playing a spy so she will be a good fit, although it was jarring to see he character so quickly develop the combat level qualifications that make her equal to some others in the group. She is fit enough and fine, and when her character has to improvise, especially in the climax, she is terrific, but her character is supposed to have a different background and that difference gets ignored as the film moves on. 

All the Mission Impossible Films are anchored by great stunts and clever visual sequences. The opening of the film riffs on "The Hunt for Red October", with the same outcome for a Russian sub that was seen in that movie. This is where the confusion starts as well. Although we get an exposition scene from an under utilized Cary Elwes, that comes almost two hours after we have witnessed the opening and we are still trying to figure it out. Of course that is part of the intrigue, but the audience may be wary of everything after this. Elwes and the returning Henry Czerny as former IMF director Kittridge, are set up to be the partial villains of the bureaucracy, the real bad guy appears to be Esai Morales as Gabriel, working on behalf the the real big bad, "The Entity, a self aware A.I. that has taken control of the digital world and is using it to achieve an end that we are not yet sure of. Gabriel has a team, the Intelligence Community has a team, multiple local jurisdictions are involved, and there is a band of bounty hunters, and all of them are after Ethan and Atwell's Grace. At times this feels like one long continuous chase movie. The moments of tension are less about achieving an objective than giving us a bit of a break from the chase. But damn, those are some good chases.

Tom gets to do his patented running man routine at least three times during the film. There are two excellent motorcycle sequences and two equally great car chases. There is certainly a lot of action to go around. The shooting that takes place exhibits the usual poor marksmanship of the bad guys, and the hero team never seems to miss. That is boiler plate stuff. The real highlights come in the train sequence at the end of the film. There is a solid fight on the top of the train, and the Spielberg/Hitchcock inspired action after the train begins going off the edge is going to make your butt clench, even though we know it is just a movie. Once again, the stunt team and the practical effects, make this movie feel completely different from so many action films nowadays. The film ends on a cliff hanging moment, but since it it Part One of Two, no one should be too surprised by that. There is no teaser sequence during or after the titles, these film makers are keeping it real.

This was my most highly anticipated movie of the year with the possible exception of "Dune Part II". It lived up to my expectations and the audience I saw it with was quite responsive. Once more Lalo Schifrin should be getting a huge residual check, his theme is used in the right places and it provides the audience energy needed to propel us through the story. The release of this movie is one of the twisted tales that resulted from the Covis-19 shutdowns. This movie got held up in production by the Pandemic, and the studios juggled how to release this and last years Tom Cruise vehicle "Top Gun Maverick". And just like last year, there is a good chance that Tom Cruise will break the movie going doldrums and get folks out to the theater. Like last year, Cruise may save the summer and the cinema experience. Who says there are no movie stars left? 

Mission Impossible: Fallout

When I mentioned at one point that this was the film I was most looking forward too this summer, I received some verbal shrugs of the shoulder from a few fellow bloggers. An attitude that I simply cannot fathom. This series has been consistently excellent in my point of view, and the fact that Tom Cruise is the driving force behind the production seems to irritate some people. The internet is full or terrible things but most of the film sites I visit have rational people offering reasons for their love or hate of a particular film. So it was a surprise to me to see this comment on one of the blog posts I visited this week,

 "  I have no interest in watching some aging dinosaur doing stupid stunts just to prove that he’s still got it. If he wants to impress me, why doesn’t he just jump off of a f#@king cliff and f#@king die?"

Does that seem a little harsh to you? It did to me. There is apparently a lot of Tom Cruise hate out there, not too far under the surface.

So before I begin my discussion of the film, let me make a brief defense of Mr. Cruise. Regardless of his personal life, he has always been a professional. He works hard at putting on screen, those things that he thinks will make a film better for the audience. To use the vernacular of the author of this note, I'd rather see an aging star who gives a damn about the quality of his film, perform a practical stunt, than watch a pretty boy flavor of the month, dangle in front of a green screen, trying to sell something that they look down on in the first place. 

As a producer on these films, Cruise has been responsible for employing thousands of behind the scenes technical crafts people. The creative types from cinematographers, writers, stunt coordinators and directors, have all been given an amazing canvas to work on. Maybe the results are not always pretty to everyone. That is your prerogative and taste. I do think however dismissing it as "stupid" and assuming that the star is trying to impress you may be off target a bit. What is completely off target however is wishing death to someone because of your petulant views. OK, end of rant.

"Fallout" is the sixth film in this franchise, and I think you will find that most objective viewers will say that since the second film, they have gotten steadily better. A couple of things that help make that true are the continuing inclusions of new characters that allow conflict, humor or more emotional spark in the film. Since Simon Pegg came on board in "MI:III ", he has become more than just the comic relief and his character is more integral to the teams mission. Jeremy Renner, who made two appearances in the series, but is sadly missing here, also added some gravitas to the proceedings while providing a completely different form of humor.

The two most recent additions from the previous film to this one are Rebecca Ferguson as MI:6 operative Ilsa Faust, who provides a counterpart to Cruise for  skill, action and wits. In addition, there is a nice hint of romance that is not oversold like it is a Bond film. In this movie she represents the B plotline that is at odds with Ethan Hunt's objective for the story. Because her character is capable, it makes the action and events seem more interesting and complicated. Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne and Tom Wilkinson all made one off appearances in the series, so it was nice to get some payoff from having Alec Baldwin return for a second episode. As a reluctant and judgmental ally and Superior to Hunt's IMF group, Baldwin gets a chance to play both sides a bit and ultimately be played as well. I sort of enjoy the coincidence in Angela Bassett as the new C.I.A. chief, it's as if Tina Turner is stepping into Ike's shoes with Fishburne out of the picture. It is likely that if there are future installments in this franchise, she will return.

The plot is as complicated as these things usually get. A dangerous macguffin is out in the open and must be recovered by the team. Of course no path is straight and this plot develops an interesting twist by requiring that a previous villain be exchanged for the missing "dangerous item in a suitcase". This puts Ethan and the team in an awkward position that ultimately creates a very ironic twist to the story.

To get though all of this, we get several incredible action sequences. There is a terrific, over the top hand to hand combat fight in a glittering white bathroom. Ethan and his team have to improvise a heist in the middle of the picture, so that he can sleep at night. The screenwriter/director Christopher McQuarrie injects some morality issues into this spy shoot em up, through a couple of nightmare sequences that visualize for us the qualms Ethan has about the choices he makes. The Tom Cruise haters will point to several chase scenes as proof that it is all about Tom as he rides a motorcycle like a bat out of hell or jumps from one building to another while doing the traditional Tom Cruise running. Those actions are not just to make Cruise look good, every spy film has chases and acts of derring do which put us in with the hero.

Henry Cavill and his mustache, take a break from the D.C. Universe to play a mysterious C.I.A. enforcer, foisted on the mission by the new DCIA. He looks good in a fight and not much effort was made to hide the fact that he is substantially taller than the star. His addition to the team suggests that not all the competent field agents have the temper for some of the delicate work that has to be done. The helicopter chase and battle that are the climax of the picture go a long way in showing that no one here is really a Superman, they all are vulnerable to a lot more than kryptonite. Ethan Hunt may have tried to bury his weakness, but it does get exploited well at the climax of the film.

"Mission Impossible: Fallout" owes most of it's success to producer and star Tom Cruise. The film is not perfect, after all there are some plot-holes and lucky coincidences, but you never really care about that. This is a film that wants to keep you on the edge of your seat and it manages that nicely for all the two and a half hours of it's running time. OK, maybe Cruise should be sure to send part of his profit participation to Lalo Schifrin, who created the iconic theme that sells this movie in the trailer, the titles and the end credits. I'd be willing to defend a proposition that it is the single greatest piece of theme music ever.