Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One (McQuarrie, 2023)
I did not enter the theater with high expectations for this one despite the hype. And for the first thirty minutes or so, it felt like my cynical side was correct. The plot that was set up was a fairly standard “get the MacGuffin object,” and two overlong set pieces, one in an airport and one on the streets of Rome, had me convinced that this was going to be a stylish but generic spy thriller.
And yet, by the end, I left the theater, thinking that I had just seen the best action franchise movie in over a decade. So what happened?
Mission Impossible II (2000) was one of the first films I remember that reverse-engineered the movie around the set pieces, treating the plot and characters as nearly disposable elements of the genre. It was and is a safe, defensible strategy, one that served the James Bond franchise well and kept it from being held hostage by any one actor, director, or creative vision. But the rise of Marvel in particular has led to a landscape where fitting comfortably into the franchise has become more important than being a good stand-alone movie, and the easiest way to do that is to be as similar (and as indistinguishable) as possible from every other entry.
Dead Reckoning Part One doesn’t abandon the structure of a franchise thriller, but it does something increasingly rare in this day and age. It takes some time to flesh out the skeleton plot. it gives supporting characters meaningful choices and development rather than just catchphrases. It’s easy enough to think of this franchise as a Tom Cruise showpiece, but the Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Czerny, Esai Morales, and Hayley Atwell are all given relevant, important scenes that contribute to the social fabric of the make-believe world. It’s hard to buy into individual characters’ sense of camaraderie and loyalty if the movie itself doesn’t care about anyone but the hero. Here, I care about the other characters besides Ethan not merely because Ethan does but because the film does.
As far as that generic plot? Well, sure, the key that everyone is chasing but nobody knows what it unlocks is a bit of a tired conceit. But rather than only having characters debate how to get it, the movie shows them considering who should get it and why. Any amount of introspection is rare in this genre, and it is what makes the stakes more meaningful than they typically are in a film where you know the good guys will win. Who are the good guys? It isn’t entirely clear.
The final set piece in Dead Reckoning Part One is spectacular, one of those efficiently crafted thriller climaxes where multiple characters are doing things, and yet the editors know how to piece it together for flow and tempo. Thematically, I appreciate the fact that the last act has the counter-cultural daring to suggest that there are some problems that simply cannot be solved with violence and not just because of mutually assured destruction. Could Part Two pivot back to a reliance on the myth of redemptive violence? Yes, and that’s my worry. But until it does, the first half is in the clubhouse as one of the most refreshing and satisfying franchise films since Aliens.
