Ryan Shoots First: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

It’s rare a series aborts its transition plans and puts out its best work. The Mission: Impossible franchise was poised to hand over the reigns to Jeremy Renner but when Ghost Protocol reinvigorated the franchise Cruise stuck around and the series would spin out banger after banger. 

Seriously when we think of the top franchises we rarely include Mi. The “Syndicate” trilogy was about as solid as they come with each one wildly entertaining. The last outing Fallout served as a good buffer into the next two parter starting with Dead Reckoning Part 1. That doesn’t even mention 3 which many still maintain is their favorite. 

It has big spy action, globe trotting sets, big names and bigger stunts. And when I say big stunts they’ve become just a part of the experience as anything else. To the point before we saw a trailer we saw a 12 minute featurette about Tom driving a motorcycle of a cliff like 50 times. And amazingly none of them come off as overly cheesy or on the level of the the Fast franchise. The way they’re framed and shot all with Tom at the center just works. 

But while Tom leads the franchise the cast around him between the mainstays and the passerby’s are a who’s who. None more crucial I would say then Rebecca Ferguson as Elsa Foust.  She stunning, deadly and brings heart to the role. We’re rooting for her to fall for Ethan or kill him whatever she really wants. 

But what about Dead Reckoning Part 1? Well with pretty much the same creative team of the last few films it’s everything you expect. Non stop action, plenty of masks and a little comedy. More so than I would expect but it was fresh with the last few being so heavy end of the world stuff the first half of DR is kinda a fun spy heist film. Don’t get me wrong though being a part 1 it isn’t long till the fate of the world is in the balance and only Ethan can save us. 

We mentioned earlier newcomers constantly joining Ethan’s gang of merry men and this time around Hayley Atwell joins the team as Grace. She is heavily featured in the movie, maybe second only to Cruise in screen time and is a good “fish out of water” perspective to the formula we’ve come to know. She also allows the story to dive a bit into not only the history of IMF and how one joins them, but even Ethan’s past which we’ve really never explored prior to him being in the IMF. 

But what about the bad guys? While formidable for sure there is some set up here in part 1 for part 2. The big bad I guess you could say is Gabriel played by Esai Morales. I’ll save his backstory for the movie but I’ll just say it is directly tied to Ethan. You may be wondering, after movie after movie, with a secret group seeking to control the world, what else could they pull out to be different? Well, I’ll say the threat they uncover is certainly something different than an undercover cabal of shady world leaders. 

I would say Dead Reckoning is familiar in all the good ways but fresh enough to not feel repetitive. It has a satisfying conclusion for a part 1 and is a stand alone film. While it sets up part 2 it’s not in a way that cheapens the finale of part 1. If you’ve liked the last 4 MI films you will feel right at home. Now I can only imagine what insane stunt Tom will come up with to perform in the next one. This review will self destruct in 5 seconds.