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Last summer, Tom Cruise was given credit for saving the theatrical experience with the widely beloved “ Top Gun: Maverick .” One of our last true movie stars returns over a year later as the blockbuster experience seems to be fading with high-budget Hollywood endeavors like " The Flash " and " Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny " falling short of expectations. Can he be Hollywood's savior again? I hope so because “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is a ridiculously good time. Once again, director Christopher McQuarrie , Cruise, and their team have crafted a deceptively simple thriller, a film that bounces good, bad, and in-between characters off each other for 163 minutes (an admittedly audacious runtime for a film with “Part One” in the title that somehow doesn’t feel long). Some of the overcooked dialogue about the importance of this particular mission gets repetitive, but then McQuarrie and his team will reveal some stunningly conceived action sequence that makes all the spy-speak tolerable. Hollywood is currently questioning the very state of their industry. Leave it to Ethan Hunt to accept the mission.

While this series essentially rebooted in its fourth chapter, changing tone and style significantly, this seventh film very cleverly ties back to the 1996 Brian De Palma original more than any other, almost as if it's uniting the two halves of the franchise. It’s not an origin story, but it does have the tenor of something like the excellent “Casino Royale” in how it unpacks the very purpose of a beloved character. “Dead Reckoning Part One” is about Ethan Hunt reconciling how he got to this point in his life, and McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendresen narratively recall De Palma’s film repeatedly. And with its sweaty, canted close-ups, Fraser Taggart ’s cinematography wants you to remember the first movie—how Ethan Hunt became an agent and the price he’s been paying from the beginning.

It’s not just visual nods. “Dead Reckoning” returns former IMF director Eugene Kittridge ( Henry Czerny ) to Ethan’s life with a new mission. Kittridge informs Hunt that there’s essentially a rogue A.I. in the world that superpowers are battling to control. The A.I. can be manipulated with a key split into two halves. One of those halves is about to be sold on the black market, and so Ethan and his team—including returning characters Luther ( Ving Rhames ) and Benji ( Simon Pegg )—have to not just intercept the key but discern its purpose. The key only matters if IMF can figure out where and how to use it.

After a desert shoot-out that ushers Ilsa Faust ( Rebecca Ferguson ) back into the series, the first major set piece in “Dead Reckoning Part One” takes place in the Dubai airport, where Hunt discovers that there are other players in this espionage chess game, including a familiar face in Gabriel ( Esai Morales ), a morally corrupt mercenary who is one of the reasons that Hunt is an agent in the first place. Gabriel is a chaos agent, someone who not only wants to watch the world burn but hopes the fire inflicts as much pain as possible. In many ways, Gabriel is the inverse of Ethan, whose weakness has been his empathy and personal connections—Gabriel has none of those, and he’s basically working for the A.I., trying to get the key so no one can control it.

At the airport, Ethan also crosses paths with a pickpocket named Grace ( Hayley Atwell ), who gets stuck in the middle of all of this world-changing insanity, along with a few agents trying to hunt down the rogue Ethan and are played by a wonderfully exasperated Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis . A silent assassin, memorably sketched by Pom Klementieff , is also essential to a few action scenes. And Vanessa Kirby returns as the arms dealer White Widow, and, well, if the ensemble has a weakness, it's Kirby's kind of lost performance. She has never quite been able to convey "power player" in these films as she should.

But that doesn't matter because people aren't here for the White Widow's backstory. They want to see Tom Cruise run. The image most people associate with “ Mission: Impossible ” is probably Mr. Cruise stretching those legs and swinging those arms. He does that more than once here, but it seems like the momentum of that image was the artistic force behind this entire film. “Dead Reckoning Part One” prioritizes movement—trains, cars, Ethan’s legs. It’s an action film that's about speed and urgency, something that has been so lost in the era of CGI’s diminished stakes. Runaway trains will always have more inherent visceral power than waves of animated bad guys, and McQuarrie knows how to use it sparingly to make an action film that both feels modern and old-fashioned at the same time. These films don’t over-rely on CGI, ensuring we know that it’s really Mr. Cruise jumping off that motorcycle. When punches connect, bodies fly, and cars crash into each other—we feel it instead of just passively observing it. The action here is so wonderfully choreographed that only “ John Wick: Chapter 4 ” compares for the best in the genre this year.

There’s also something fascinating thematically here about a movie star battling A.I. and questioning the purpose of his job. Blockbusters have been cautionary tech tales for generations but think about the meta aspect of a spy movie in which the world could collapse if the espionage game is overtaken by a sentient computer that stars an actor who has been at the center of controversy regarding his own deepfakes. There’s also a definite edge to the plotting here that plays into the actor’s age in that Ethan is forced to answer questions about what matters to him regarding his very unusual work/life balance, a reflection of what a performer like Cruise must face as he reaches the end of an action movie rope that’s been much longer than anyone could have even optimistically expected. Cruise may or may not intend that reading—although I suspect he does—but it adds another layer to the action.

Of course, the most important thing is this: “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is just incredibly fun. It feels half its length and contains enough memorable action sequences for some entire franchises. Will Cruise save the blockbuster experience again? Maybe. And he might do it again next summer too.

In theaters on July 12 th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One movie poster

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some language and suggestive material.

163 minutes

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt

Hayley Atwell as Grace

Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell

Simon Pegg as Benjamin 'Benji' Dunn

Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust

Vanessa Kirby as The White Widow

Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge

Esai Morales as Gabriel

Pom Klementieff as Paris

Cary Elwes as Denlinger

Shea Whigham as Jasper Briggs

Christopher McQuarrie
Erik Jendresen

Cinematographer

Fraser Taggart
Eddie Hamilton
Lorne Balfe

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‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ Review: Still Running

In this franchise’s seventh entry, Tom Cruise’s mission includes increasingly improbable leaps, chases and stunts. Luckily for us, he chooses to accept it.

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In a film scene, a man in a shirt, tie and vest with no suit jacket is handcuffed to a woman in a button-down shirt. A car is behind them in an alley.

By Manohla Dargis

I don’t know if anyone has ever clocked whether Tom Cruise is faster than a speeding bullet. The guy has legs, and guts. His sprints into the near-void have defined and sustained his stardom, becoming his singular superpower. He racks up more miles in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” the seventh entry in a 27-year-old franchise that repeatedly affirms a movie truism. That is, there are few sights more cinematic than a human being outracing danger and even death onscreen — it’s the ultimate wish fulfillment!

Much remains the same in this latest adventure, including the series’ reliable entertainment quotient and Cruise’s stamina. Once again, he plays Ethan Hunt, the leader of a hush-hush American spy agency, the Impossible Mission Force. Alongside a rotating roster of beautiful kick-ass women (most recently Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby) and loyal handymen (Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames), Ethan has been sprinting, flying, diving and speed-racing across the globe while battling enemy agents, rogue operatives, garden-variety terrorists and armies of minions. Along the way, he has regularly delivered a number of stomach-churning wows, like jumping out a window and climbing the world’s tallest building .

This time, the villain is the very au courant artificial intelligence, here called the Entity. The whole thing is complicated, as these stories tend to be, with stakes as catastrophic as recent news headlines have trumpeted. Or, as an open letter signed by 350 A.I. authorities put it last month: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” In the face of such calamity, who you gonna call? Analog Man, that’s who, a.k.a. Mr. Hunt, who receives his usual mysterious directives that, this time, have been recorded on a cassette tape, an amusing touch for a movie about the threat poised to the material world by a godlike digital power.

That’s all fine and good, even if the most memorable villain proves to be a Harley Quinn-esque agent of chaos, Paris (Pom Klementieff), who races after Ethan in a Hummer and seems ready to spin off into her own franchise. She tries flattening him during a seamlessly choreographed chase sequence in Rome — the stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, is also a racecar driver — that mixes excellent wheel skills with scares, laughs, thoughtful geometry and precision timing. At one point, Ethan ends up behind the wheel while handcuffed to a new love interest, Grace (Hayley Atwell, another welcome addition), driving and drifting, flirting and burning rubber in what is effectively the action-movie equivalent of a sex scene.

Despite the new faces, there are, unsurprisingly, no real surprises in “Dead Reckoning Part One,” which features a number of dependably showstopping stunts, hits every narrative beat hard and, shrewdly, has just enough winking humor to keep the whole thing from sagging into self-seriousness. This is the third movie in the series that Cruise and the director Christopher McQuarrie have made together, and they have settled into a mutually beneficial groove. On his end, McQuarrie has assembled a fully loaded blockbuster machine that briskly recaps the series’ foundational parameters, adds the requisite twists and, most importantly, showcases his star. For his part, Cruise has once again cranked the superspy dial up to 11.

Over the years, McQuarrie has loosened up the star, who generally seems to be having a pretty good time. Still, it must be exhausting to be Tom Cruise, who famously performs his own stunts. A smattering of creases now radiate around his smile, but time doesn’t seem to have slowed his relentless roll. The most arresting set piece here finds Ethan smoothly sailing off a cliff via a motorbike and a parachute. Improbable, yes? Impossible? Nah. Like the other large-scale, stunt-driven sequences, this showy leap at once underscores Cruise’s skills and reminds you that a real person in a real location on a real motorbike did this lunatic stunt.

Nothing if not a classicist, Ethan also goes one to one with a baddie (Esai Morales) atop a speeding train, perhaps in homage to his cliffhanger moves on another train in the first “ Mission: Impossible ” (1996). In his review, the New York Times critic Stephen Holden observed that with this film Cruise had “found the perfect superhero character.” It’s worth noting that, in 1996, the top 10 movies released in the United States were largely high-concept thrillers and comedies; in 2022, half the top 10 releases were from Marvel or DC. Yet the film that connected most strongly with audiences was Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Although “Maverick” featured plenty of digital whiz-bangery, its most spectacular draw of course was Cruise, who has also remained the single greatest attraction in the “Mission” movies. To that point, while there’s little of substance that I remember about the first film other than it was directed by Brian De Palma, I can vividly picture — with the crystalline recall that only some movies instill — two distinct images of Cruise-Ethan from it. In one, he races away from a tsunami of water and shattered glass; in the second, he hovers inches above a gleaming white floor, his black-clad body stretched head to toe in a near-perfect horizontal line. The filmmakers imprinted those images on my memory; so did Cruise.

Early in the “Mission: Impossible” series, the outlandishness of the movies’ plots and Cruise’s equally fantastical stunts started to make him seem less than human. By the second movie, I wondered if he were disappearing altogether, turning himself into little more than a special effect. Since then, the plots and the stunts have remained impossibly absurd, sometimes enjoyably so, as here. Yet over the years, the series has unexpectedly made Cruise seem more poignantly human than he has sometimes seemed elsewhere. One reason is that the “Mission” movies were instrumental in shifting the locus of his star persona from his easygoing smile — the toothy gleam of “Risky Business” and “Jerry Maguire” — to his hardworking body.

The obvious effort that Cruise puts into his “Mission” stunts and the physical punishment he endures to execute them — signaled by his grimaces and popping muscles — have had a salutary impact on that persona, as has the naked ferocity with which he’s held onto stardom. It’s touching. It’s also difficult to imagine any actor today starting out in a superhero flick reaching a commensurate fame, not only because the movies, Hollywood’s at least, no longer retain the hold on the popular imagination that they once did, but also because the corporately branded superhero suit will always be more important than whoever wears it. Tom Cruise doesn’t need a suit; he was, after all, built for speed. He just needs to keep running.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One Rated PG-13 for thriller violence. Running time: 2 hours 43 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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The Extravagant Treats of “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One”

By Anthony Lane

Tom Cruise riding a motorcycle off a cliff.

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tomtom, a pounding of the drums tells us that another installment of “ Mission: Impossible ” is under way. Most of us know the trills and thrills of Lalo Schifrin’s original score, which remains the most exciting theme tune ever composed for TV. (Paddling furiously in its wake is that of “Hawaii Five-O.”) For the ensuing movie franchise, the tune has been repeatedly stretched and tweaked—or, in the case of the second film, lacerated by Limp Bizkit. Now, as the seventh chapter of the saga begins, we hear no melody at all: nothing but the rhythm, thudding forth. But it’s enough. We brace ourselves, and adopt the Mission position. Here we go.

The new movie, which is directed by Christopher McQuarrie, runs for two hours and forty-three minutes, and its full title is “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One,” which takes about half an hour to say. If Part Two, which is due to be released next June, is of similar dimensions, we’ll be landed with a tale that is more than five hours in the telling. Concision junkies will have to look elsewhere. The first sign of swelling, in this latest adventure, comes with a gathering of U.S. intelligence personnel, which goes on and on. It’s eventually halted by a guy who throws smoke bombs around, unleashing clouds of pretty green gas—a mild surprise to those present, who were presumably expecting coffee and a selection of pastries, but by this stage any interruption is welcome.

The topic of the meeting is the Entity, which is discussed at such length, and in tones of such grandiloquent awe, that I understood it even less at the end than I did at the start. In the world of “Mission: Impossible,” villainy gets bigger and more abstract by the movie. In “ Rogue Nation ” (2015), we had the Syndicate. In “Fallout” (2018), we had the Apostles. Now we get the Entity. (What next? The Intimation? The Word in Your Ear?) It seems to be a species of A.I.—“an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere,” we hear, with “a mind of its own.” Access to it is granted by a cruciform key, in two sections; collect the pair, slot ’em together, and the Entity lies within your grasp. Any government or terrorist outfit possessing it will wield unquenchable power, and the one person who can stop it from slipping into evil hands is, of course, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), Frodo Baggins having taken early retirement.

Ethan assembles his usual gang, consisting of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), who has been on call since the first “Mission: Impossible” (1996), and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). Also in the mix is Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who made her début in “Rogue Nation.” To my eyes, it was with the arrival of Ferguson that the franchise truly took flight; her manner was tranquil even at the height of tension, her character’s fealty was elusive, and she was splendidly unimpressed by the hero. That impressed him. Make no mistake, Cruise is in control of these movies—“A Tom Cruise Production,” the opening credits of “Dead Reckoning” announce—but he has the wit to realize how dreary that dominance would become if Ethan were not, at regular intervals, unmanned by women.

Hence the amazing Grace (Hayley Atwell). She is a thief, whom Ethan bumps into at the Abu Dhabi airport. The thing about bumping into Grace is that, post-bump, you will find yourself bereft of valuables, for her fingers are feather-light. Although she has a sheaf of passports, like Jason Bourne, she is new to mayhem, never mind to brutality, and Atwell does a lovely job of suggesting that Grace’s natural state is one of criminal innocence—wide-eyed yet without a flake of ditziness, and far too schooled in common sense to be a femme fatale. Observe how she pauses, with a frown of uncertainty, before putting on one of those rubber masks which more seasoned habitués of “Mission: Impossible,” when switching identities, don and doff like gloves. Ever practical, she ties her hair back before clambering onto the outside of a speeding train, and, as she and Ethan are harried through Roman streets by multiple vehicles, exclaims, “Is there anyone not chasing us?” An excellent question. The chase concludes with a merry plea. “Don’t hate me,” she says, leaving Ethan bewitched, bothered, and be-handcuffed to a steering wheel. Nice.

The cuffs are a Hitchcockian clue, and the whole movie is clamorous with echoes of earlier works. (“Dead Reckoning” was a Humphrey Bogart thriller from 1947—tangled, surly, and steeped in postwar bitterness.) On the trusty comic principle that huge blockbusters deserve dinky modes of transport, Ethan and Grace scoot through Rome in a Fiat 500, the color of ripe lemons, recalling Roger Moore’s Citroën 2CV in “For Your Eyes Only” (1981), or, indeed, the tuk-tuk driven to exhaustion by Harrison Ford in the latest “ Indiana Jones .” The climax of McQuarrie’s film, set on and atop a train, alludes with pride to the first “Mission: Impossible” and winds up saluting “The General” (1926), Buster Keaton’s runaway masterpiece, as a locomotive takes a deep dive through a broken bridge.

Cruise has none of Keaton’s dreamy stoicism, but both actors, trim and compact, define themselves by the outsized magnificence of their stunts. In addition, each of them is most at ease when in haste. They run unstoppably yet with an oddly formal poise—torso held upright, like that of a waiter with a tray, above the pumping pistons of their legs. Watch Keaton sprint along the crest of a hill, a century ago, in the finale of “Seven Chances,” or Cruise in full flow on the roof of an airport, in “Dead Reckoning.” Relentlessness of this order ought to be chilling. Not so. Instead, we are stirred and amused by a preternatural sight: men as little machines.

There is a devout podcast, “Light the Fuse,” which peruses “Mission: Impossible” in all its incarnations. Should you wish to hear an interview—nay, a two-part interview—with a former marketing intern on the third film, here is your opportunity. As the podcast approaches its two-hundred-and-fortieth episode, one has to ask: why do these movies continue to suck us in? Perhaps because they are as fetishistic as their fans. Precision is everything. I have lost count of the objects, friendly and hostile, that click, lock, or shunt into place. The bass flute that turned into an assassin’s rifle, in “Rogue Nation,” somehow stood for the cunningly wrought design of the entire narrative. Likewise, on a larger scale, the main attraction of “Dead Reckoning” is a motorbike-and-parachute leap that was previewed, unpacked, and explained online, many months ago, the purpose being to demonstrate that Cruise, the nerveless and unfading star, had performed the maneuver himself. Here is a motion picture equipped with auto-spoilers, eager to stress that at the heart of its fantasy lies something risky and real.

It was after “Rogue Nation” that I searched my conscience and discovered, as I sorted through the rubble, that I was looking forward with greater gusto to the next helping of “Mission: Impossible” than I was to the upcoming James Bond. For somebody reared on 007, this was tantamount to apostasy. I felt like a mid-Victorian Protestant admitting, in shame and confusion, to the lure of the Catholic faith. The change of allegiance was merely hardened by “No Time to Die,” the most recent Bond flick, in 2021, which foundered in an agony of self-involvement. Who wants a hero who expires under the sheer weight of backstory? Where’s the fun in that?

By contrast, retrospection has played a blessedly small part in the emotional legend of Ethan Hunt. We gaze back, in remembrance of stunts past—“Oh, my God, that bit in the fourth one where he climbed a skyscraper with magnetic suckers on his mitts,” and so on. Ethan’s own impulse, though, is forever onward, and to complain that his character lacks depth is to misinterpret the laws of dramatic physics. He is mass times velocity plus grin. If he has a history, it tends to self-destruct from film to film; which of us honestly remembers, let alone cares, that he got married in “Mission: Impossible III” (2006)? Does he remember? That’s why the plot of “Dead Reckoning” is a cause for concern—not because of the metaphysical fluff (“Whoever controls the Entity controls the truth”) but because of Gabriel (Esai Morales), a smooth devil who craves the cruciform key. Thirty years ago, apparently, he crossed paths with Ethan, who declares, “In a very real sense, he made me who I am today.” I don’t like the sound of that. Let us pray that Part Two will not require Ethan to follow the example of poor 007, forsaking crazy capers to lick his psychological wounds.

For now, how does Part One stack up? Well, as I say, it’s too talky by half. A funky soirée at the Doge’s Palace, in Venice, brings together Ethan, Ilsa, Gabriel, Grace, and the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), the arms dealer with a hypnotizing stare whom we first encountered in “Fallout.” All the interested parties, in other words, yet the result is just not interesting; I vaguely hoped that Miss Marple would show up, reveal the killer’s name, and hit the dance floor. Soon afterward, a fight breaks out in an alleyway, during which Ethan beats a woman’s head against a wall—a spasm of nastiness that has no place in a saga as strangely anesthetized as “Mission: Impossible.” There isn’t the faintest shudder of sex in “Dead Reckoning,” so why does McQuarrie allow such violence to sour the spirited action?

But let’s be fair. Despite its longueurs and shortcomings, this movie is still a bag of extravagant treats. A submarine attacked by an invisible foe beneath the Arctic ice. A grand piano suspended directly over Ethan and Grace, and prevented from dropping only by a slowly weakening clamp. Rebecca Ferguson wearing a sniper’s eye patch. A nuclear bomb that asks the person trying to defuse it whether he is afraid of death. And, best of all, in Rome, the Fiat 500 rocking and rolling down the Spanish Steps—which, as we are charmingly assured in the closing credits, were not harmed in the making of the film. Thank God. Or thank Tom Cruise. The choice is yours. ♦

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‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ Review: A Stunt-Loving Tom Cruise Takes On AI … and Big-Screen CG Rivals

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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One - Variety Critic's Pick

Sooner or later, Ethan Hunt will face a mission he really ought not to accept. But for the time being, he remains the one man on Earth willing to attempt the impossible without questioning the motives of those who require his services. That’s the deal with America’s most dutiful Boy Scout, Tom Cruise , who’s carried the billion-dollar “Mission: Impossible” franchise across 27 years without losing steam. Compare that with Indiana Jones, who’s failed to connect with a younger generation, or the “Fast and Furious” movies, which aren’t running out of gas so much as guzzling the laughing sort.

Popular on Variety

While Cruise’s Hunt is busy being the movie’s action figure, he’s supported by tech agents Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), who give him pointers via headset. “Dead Reckoning” also brings back sharpshooter Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and arms dealer the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), lining up a neat little ensemble of friends and associates that the AI can target and/or manipulate. The idea here is that the Entity’s mile-a-minute computation skills have concluded that the only thing that stands in its way is Hunt. And what is Hunt’s weak spot? Loyalty to his friends. As Hunt tells a gifted recruit known only as Grace (Hayley Atwell), “Your life will always matter more than my own.”

That’s just a flat-out lousy tactical philosophy, but it’s the kind of stubborn thinking that Cruise embodies so well: a blunt instrument traveling at extremely high velocity, guided by instinct and that inner ethical barometer. Even though we’ve just met Grace — who’s a pickpocket for hire, and not much of a team player — Hunt has decided she’s worth protecting. Heck, she could even be Impossible Mission Force material. So, when the Entity forces Hunt to choose which of his amigas to save, Ilsa or Grace, the guy all but short-circuits. In theory, that’s how you beat a virtual brain: You give it an impossible problem to solve (à la the tic-tac-toe game in “War Games”). For the moment, the Entity seems to be playing chess, not Risk, as “Dead Reckoning” has yet to show what renegade AI is capable of. Told that one of these women must die, Hunt does his darnedest to save them both. As usual, he’s got face masks in his arsenal, while the Entity has a nifty trick for pretending to be various people — a reminder that you can never trust your eyes or ears in an “M:I” movie.

Since Hunt can’t really deal with the Entity directly, the movie concocts a handful of human henchpeople to do its bidding (and punching, driving, etc.). To that end, Esai Morales plays a guy named Gabriel who’s been retconned into Hunt’s backstory, which supposedly makes this a more personal mission than those that came before — although the effect is no different than if he’d been invented for this movie. Gabriel takes orders from the Entity, while right-hand woman Paris (Pom Klementieff, who played Mantis in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies) proves the more threatening adversary. She first appears in Rome, where an elaborate car chase shot on location expertly balances thrills and laughter, the latter courtesy of a puny Fiat 500 and a pair of handcuffs.

With just one film left in the series, “Dead Reckoning” starts to tie up loose ends, which means none of the canonical characters is safe — not even Hunt. Combine that with the Entity’s strategy of targeting his friends, and the movie succeeds in humanizing the stakes. At the core, this is still just an elaborate game of hot potato, as everyone chases the two-part key that went down with the Russian sub, and which keeps changing hands over the movie’s 163-minute running time. The action builds to the film’s best set-piece, as Hunt finds a novel way to board a speeding train — and an even more unconventional way to disembark once it starts sliding off a bridge, one car at a time. This outing may be one-half of a two-part finale, but it gives audiences enough closure to stand on its own, and every reason to expect the last installment will be a corker.

Reviewed at Paramount Theatre, Los Angeles, May 27, 2023. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 163 MIN.

Production: A Paramount Pictures release of a Paramount Pictures, Skydance presentation of a Tom Cruise production. Producers: Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie. Executive producers: David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Tommy Gormley, Chris Brock, Susan E. Novick.
Crew: Director: Christopher McQuarrie. Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie & Erik Jendresen, based on the television series created by Bruce Geller. Camera: Fraser Taggart. Editor: Eddie Hamilton. Music: Lorne Balfe.
With: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Frederick Schmidt, Cary Elwes, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma, Rob Delaney

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Review: Tom Cruise is out to save the movies. Is ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ enough?

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It begins with a plunge into the icy deep, where a submarine is menaced by an invisible threat — a scene that induces shivery memories of “The Hunt for Red October” and “Das Boot” (and also triggers inevitable thoughts of a certain ill-fated submersible ). Then it shifts to a hot orange desert, billed as Arabia though it might as well be Arrakis , where a dust-storm pursuit gives way to some tricky sleight-of-sand. Ludicrously entertaining and even more ludicrously titled, “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” doesn’t just rack up the miles in style. Like so many globe-trotting thrillers and big-screen tourist brochures, it’s also a gleaming advertisement for Hollywood itself, a celebration and a reminder of how profoundly the movies have shaped our views of the world.

The task of saving that world once again falls to Ethan Hunt, a.k.a. Tom Cruise — and if the world can’t be saved, well, maybe at least the movies can. Or can they? Even if not, just try and stop Cruise, now 61, from taking the weight of the entire industry on his shoulders. His gargantuan cine-savior complex was apparent back in 2020, when he railed against COVID protocol violators on the U.K. set of “Dead Reckoning Part One,” captured in an audio recording that did not exactly self-destruct in five seconds. If the rant was overblown, this actor-producer is hardly alone in having bought into his own mythos: Earlier this year, Cruise was praised by none other than Steven Spielberg for having single-handedly “saved Hollywood’s ass” with the stunning success of “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Now, on the eve of this seventh “M:I” caper’s release, Cruise is playing the familiar role of the exhibitors’ evangelist, urging audiences on social media to seek out some of the summer’s biggest titles ( “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”) in theaters. The cross-studio solidarity is touching; it also reflects some of the industry’s deep existential anxieties around moviemaking and moviegoing. No single picture, no matter how successful, is going to lay those anxieties to rest, though “Dead Reckoning Part One,” with its queasily apocalyptic stakes and enjoyably kinked-up plot, at least seems to be in conversation with some of the underlying issues. Is it a coincidence that this time around, the movie’s big bad villain is artificial intelligence?

A man and a woman hang precariously inside a falling train car.

That would be something called the “Entity” — no, not the horror-movie incubus that menaced Barbara Hershey back in 1982, but rather a frighteningly self-aware robo-weapon powerful enough to bring data systems, economies and entire nations to their knees. Ethan and his loyal Impossible Mission Force gizmo experts, Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), are tasked with neutralizing this threat before it falls into the hands of the wrong country — which, as the movie cynically asserts, pretty much means any country. Fortunately, the Entity hasn’t reached Skynet levels of techno-malevolence yet; presumably that’s still to come in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two,” due out in theaters next year. For now, AI proves a frustratingly elusive phantom, one that acts primarily through a powerful human emissary, more devilish than angelic, named Gabriel (Esai Morales).

Flashbacks shed light on Gabriel and Ethan’s ugly, not always compelling history, which involves a confrontation, a betrayal and, surprise surprise, a beautiful dead woman. She’s a throwback to the many beautiful dead women from Ethan’s past, including three of his doomed IMF colleagues (played by Kristin Scott Thomas, Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė and Emmanuelle Béart) from the Brian De Palma-directed first “Mission: Impossible” feature (1996). Christopher McQuarrie, who directed the series’ two previous movies ( “Rogue Nation” and “Fallout” ) as well as both halves of “Dead Reckoning,” has a more restrained, less operatic visual style than De Palma (which could be said of most filmmakers). But in many respects he’s paying tribute to that 1996 caper, not only by staging a doozy of a runaway-train sequence, but also by reintroducing Ethan’s old IMF nemesis Eugene Kittridge, played once again by a banally sinister Henry Czerny.

Kittridge’s return can’t help but serve as a marker of how far Ethan, Cruise himself and this ever-durable series have come over nearly 30 years. It also suggests that the IMF, the utterly vital, eternally disavowable, brutally underloved bastard child of American intelligence, may not survive this latest and severest test of its abilities and resources. The “Dead” in the movie’s title certainly doesn’t bode well for anyone on-screen; neither does Ethan’s unnerving habit of reminding his closest colleagues that their survival means more to him than his own life. The sentiment may be cheesy, to the point where you half expect Ethan to pull off his latex mask and reveal Vin Diesel underneath. But it also reminds you that the “Mission: Impossible” movie franchise began with Ethan being framed for his teammates’ coolly premeditated murders, a formative trauma that he has never fully shaken off.

A gray-haired man and a woman share an anxious moment

For the record:

10:50 a.m. July 5, 2023 An earlier version of this review said Tom Cruise’s character maneuvered a yellow Beetle through the streets of Rome in one scene. It was a yellow Fiat.

It’s enough to make you fear for Ethan’s closest allies, among them Luther, Benji and the always-on-the-run Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), all of whom are put in varying degrees of escalating danger as the typically serpentine narrative leaps from one spectacular piece of on-location fight choreography to the next. Notably, Ethan also finds himself a new sparring partner named Grace (a terrific Hayley Atwell), a wily thief who first pops up during an undercover operation at the Abu Dhabi airport before taking Ethan on a harrowing, sometimes hilarious ride (by yellow Fiat) through the streets of Rome. That Italian escapade soon leads to another in spooky nighttime Venice, where, in tight alleys and on haunted canals, the combat takes on a murderous close-quarters intimacy.

The quality of the action here is, for the most part, more fluid and satisfying than jaw-dropping; there’s nothing here to rival De Palma’s snazziest set pieces, or Ethan’s vertiginous climb up the walls of the Burj Khalifa in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” (2011), or his men’s room demolition derby in 2018’s “Fallout.” But McQuarrie’s typically fastidious writing (undertaken this time with Erik Jendresen) makes up for whatever his direction may lack in sheer verve. And he does pull off one major cinematic coup: a triumphantly visceral, spatially disorienting, pull-out-the-stops ripsnorter of a climax that seems designed to ensure that no one dares set a movie aboard the Orient Express ever again, for fear of inviting unfavorable comparisons.

There’s more to the story, of course, which, though relatively fleeting at 163 minutes, feels generously overstuffed for a first-parter. I haven’t yet mentioned Pom Klementieff’s role as Paris, a lethally lithe newcomer of mysterious motives, killer threads and very few words. Or Vanessa Kirby, who, reprising her “Fallout” role as a ruthless arms dealer, has only to sit in a train car with a smartphone to deliver the movie’s single most impressive performance.

Maybe that’s unfair to Cruise, who once again suffers for our pleasure like no one else, hurling himself and his motorcycle from great heights, fighting in claustrophobically tight spaces and, yes, running and running and running some more. For all that, he knows how to temper his usual superhuman self-seriousness with lightness and wit. He’s even gracious enough to cede some of the spotlight to his co-stars this time around, spending a fair chunk of the movie’s endgame amusingly on the sidelines. He returns for the big-bang finish, of course, in a spirit of goofy optimism and eternal vigilance. “Dead Reckoning Part One” ends on his watch, but the movies will not.

‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’

Rating: PG-13, for intense sequences of violence and action, some language and suggestive material

Running time: 2 hours, 43 minutes

Playing: Starts July 12 in general release

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Esai Morales as Gabriel

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One review – Tom Cruise is still taking our breath away

With star turns from Vanessa Kirby and Hayley Atwell, plus a zeitgeisty AI plot, this seventh MI outing is one of the most exhilarating yet

MI goes AI in this seventh outing for the TV-series-turned-action-cinema-franchise, a genuinely breathtaking romp that tops the previous Christopher McQuarrie-directed episodes (2015’s Rogue Nation , 2018’s Fallout ) for sheer nailbiting spectacle and pulse-racing tension. The zeitgeisty plot may have holes through which you could drive the Orient Express, but for pure adrenaline rush entertainment this will leave you exhilarated and eager for more.

Three decades ago, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) sold his soul to the IMF (“no, the other IMF – the Impossible Mission Force”), a covert organisation whose oath demands that its members “live and die in the shadows for those we hold close and those we never meet”. Since then, Hunt has saved the world more than once (his last mission involved neutralising nuclear bombs). But now he’s up against everyone’s favourite enemy de nos jours – a fiendish artificial intelligence known as “the Entity”, a name that will sound sillier every time it is spoken out loud (and it is spoken out loud a lot ).

It’s hardly a new idea. Jack Paglen’s script for 2014’s 70s-influenced Transcendence dramatised the “singularity” (the point at which technology out-thinks humankind) a decade ago, paving the way for MI7’s sentient viral intelligence (“this thing has a mind of its own?! ”), which is “everywhere and nowhere… godless, stateless, amoral”, controlling and manipulating information so that “truth as we know it is in peril”.

Somehow, this very modern threat has a very old-fashioned key – a weird, crucifix-shaped dongle that (like Archimedes’s Antikythera in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ) has been split into two pieces that must be reunited to unlock its secrets. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring us the key,” declares the familiar self-destructing tape, the IMF having apparently shunned new-fangled voicemail or encrypted WhatsApp messages. Later, they will retreat to the safety of an offline analogue room – the one place the Entity can’t get to them.

Warring forces wish to own the Entity, to control and weaponise it. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) apparently holds part of the puzzle – which puts a price on her head, because “the fate of the world depends on finding whatever it unlocks” – thus sending Hunt off in globetrotting pursuit. The pre-credits sequence alone takes us from a submarine in the Bering Strait to a horseback chase through the desert, en route to a sandstorm shootout with brief stopovers in Amsterdam and elsewhere. We also get an early reminder that we’re back in a world in which rubbery masks are realistic enough to get Jason Statham believing in the Face/Off machine again.

There’s plenty of caperish comedy afoot, particularly after Hunt teams up with Hayley Atwell’s light-fingered Grace. A handcuffed car-chase featuring a Fiat 500 careening down Rome’s Spanish Steps recalls the Mini-fuelled fun of The Italian Job (with a cheeky nod towards Battleship Potemkin ), while the wisecracking interaction between Cruise and Atwell has a nice, old-school screwball flavour.

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Elsewhere, the join-the-dots plot includes a James Bond-style mission to a lavish party where a scene-stealingly cracked Vanessa Kirby warns that “truth is vanishing – war is coming”, a prologue to a Don’t Look Now - style chase through the alleyways of Venice. Esai Morales, who proved so chilling in Ozark , nails another villainous role as Gabriel, a “dark messiah” who is “the Entity’s chosen messenger”. As for Cruise, he may still have the physical fitness of a less-than-40-year-old, but he’s also developed a Richard Gere-style blinky squint of late, which adds a touch of melancholy maturity to his otherwise boyish charm.

The action is impressively gender neutral, with men and women killing and dying with equal relish (plaudits to Pom Klementieff, whose relentless – and largely silent – assassin, Paris, could give Grace Jones in A View to a Kill a run for her money). It all builds to a frankly jaw-dropping train-bound finale in which the heavily trailered sight of the real Tom Cruise really driving a real motorbike off a real mountaintop is only an appetiser for what is to come – one of the most audaciously extended action set pieces I have ever seen, which left my nails not so much bitten as gnawed to the bone. The fact that this is “only the beginning” is cause for celebration. Roll on Dead Reckoning Part Two.

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The scary question at the heart of the Mission: Impossible movies

In Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, Tom Cruise once again leads a franchise that’s all about trickery, subterfuge, and the nature of reality itself.

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Tom Cruise, in a vest and nice pants, rides a motorcycle through the stone paths of a European city.

In the very first scene of the very first Mission: Impossible film, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is interrogating a Russian guy. We don’t know it’s Hunt, though, because — in perhaps the most iconic running bit in the M:I universe — he’s wearing an extremely lifelike rubber mask. Two minutes into the scene, he walks over to the Russian, drugs him till he passes out, and then pulls off the mask, dramatically revealing the face of a slightly flushed and rumpled Cruise. (It’s hot under all that latex.)

Shortly after that first reveal, the walls of the room fall outward into a warehouse, which makes for a bigger reveal: The whole scene was faked. Not only was the now-immobilized Russian hoodwinked, but the audience was tricked into believing their senses. For us, the moment is delightful; for the laid-out man, not so much.

That opening parry for Mission: Impossible, created and produced by Cruise as a spy-action franchise for himself, showed up in movie theaters in May 1996, with Brian De Palma (of Carrie and Scarface ) in the director’s chair. Compared to the latest installment in the franchise, frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , the 1996 version is much sweatier, darker, and kind of erotic. (A Brian De Palma movie indeed.)

Cruise and Atwell appear to be hanging sideways in a train car.

The omnipresent unmaskings , of which there have been at least 15 or 20 by now, are still a mainstay of the films. What’s so great about those reveals, in particular, is that you’re rarely actually expecting them. Dead Reckoning Part One plays with this a little, but for the most part, through all the films, any guy at any time could rip his face off and you’d still be like, “Wow, I did not see that coming.”

The new version is like its predecessors, employing a trope borrowed from the TV show that spawned the film: trickery around every corner, a sense that you can’t quite believe what you see. Dead people turn out to be not-dead people. Walls of rooms keep falling apart to reveal they’re constructed in some warehouse somewhere. Everyone could be a rogue agent or maybe not, and the movie sure isn’t going to wink at you about it till it’s good and ready.

That those twists and turns keep surprising us seven movies in points to what’s truly delightful about the Mission: Impossible franchise, and what makes it, in my opinion, both the most inventive and the most satisfying long-running franchise in Hollywood. On one level, M:I is wonderful because the convoluted plots are pretty much beside the point; if they can be said to have a consistent theme, it is “Tom Cruise likes almost dying on camera.”

And yet once you’ve watched them all, you can detect a kind of meta-theme to the M:I movies. It stems from a simple moviegoing fact: Most of us believe that what we are seeing in a movie is how things actually happened in the world of the movie. It’s why a movie like A Beautiful Mind or Big Fish or The Irishman is so memorably affecting; we are trained to believe our narrators, and when it turns out that what we’ve been watching is not quite what actually happened, it’s thrilling. New meaning emerges from the mismatch.

Mission: Impossible plays on this expectation, though there’s no specific perspectival narrator. The thrill comes from occasionally discovering that what we’ve been watching is an elaborate fake-out. Sleight of hand is everywhere. Don’t trust your senses, Mission: Impossible exhorts us — they’re easily manipulated.

Tom Cruise on a motorcycle suspended midair with mountains in the background.

This is underlined, in another meta-heavy way, by what makes the films so distinctive: Cruise’s incredible, literally death-defying stunts, every film seeming to take them to a new level. He climbs up sheer rock walls , leaps across rooftops , fights cliffside , and hangs off the side of a flying Airbus A400M . Each time a new Mission: Impossible movie is released, it’s accompanied with marketing material that mainly leans on explaining that yes, Tom Cruise did actually climb the Burj Khalifa . Personally I, and I suspect Cruise, will not be satisfied until Ethan Hunt is in outer space. (Oh, he’s doing it .)

Why emphasize that he’s actually doing these stunts (albeit with cables and nets — you could never afford to insure the production otherwise) as the lynchpin of the M:I marketing? First, of course, because it is pretty badass. But the second reason is obvious: While action is a mainstay of American cinema, particularly in superhero movies, we all know they’re flying around on soundstages and are CGI’d within an inch of their lives. It’s all spectacle, but with no reality.

With Mission: Impossible , however, our deceiving eyes don’t quite extend to the stunts. Yes, there are tricks of the camera and computer going on. But Tom Cruise is actually driving a motorcycle off a cliff and then plummeting down . That’s real — real enough to gasp and hold your breath and get a little shaky. It’s as much a mainstay of the movie as the mask trickery, and that subtle play with what we’re seeing, with the real and the unreal, suggests the movies might be doing this very much on purpose.

Image reads “spoilers below,” with a triangular sign bearing an exclamation point.

I’d already formed that thought and pitched it to my editor before going into Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , and about 10 minutes in, I started silently fist-pumping. This movie’s Big Bad is something everyone calls “the Entity,” which is not a person, or even a shadowy cabal of persons, but an AI that’s become sentient and is out to take down humanity.

There’s arguably a tad too much explanation about the Entity throughout the movie that bogs it down a little, but the irony is so bold you sort of have to respect it. At the same time that Hollywood’s workers are battling to make sure their bosses don’t replace them with AI to cut costs and please shareholders, one of the summer’s biggest movies is about how AI wants to wipe us all out. It’s of a piece with recent blockbusters that are straightforwardly about how our digital doppelgangers want to kill us, algorithms are out to destroy originality , and continually repurposing nostalgia IP is how a culture dies . The call is coming from inside the house, et cetera.

But the reason I loved the Entity plotline — which, like most of the characters, will clearly be developed and wrapped up in Part Two (due out next June) — so much is that it shows what Mission: Impossible has been about all along.

Thus the Entity’s greatest threat is its ability to change reality — well, in a manner of speaking. It’s not that the digital threat can change the physical bones of reality. The Entity’s danger to humanity lies chiefly in the fact that the world is fully networked, everyone passing currency and information and even warfare along digital pathways that a sentient AI would have no trouble hacking and manipulating. In a highly mediated world, where we encounter everything and everyone through screens, the way reality is represented to us suddenly becomes, effectively, reality. If a story or a myth is floated around the internet and people come to believe it, does it even really matter, in a practical matter, if it’s true? If, as in the 1964 film Fail Safe , a country’s government thinks it’s under attack and launches a missile back at the supposed aggressor who then counterattacks, how much does it matter to the civilians on the ground that there was never an attack in the first place?

This is exactly what the humans of Dead Reckoning fear: that the entity will create reality by manipulating it, and we’ll just wipe ourselves out as a result. It’s a problem that humanity caused, of course, by getting itself so digitally intertwined and creating an AI in the first place. But now it’s out of our hands, and whoever controls it — if it can be controlled at all — is, in effect, God.

All of which weaves seamlessly into the broader Mission: Impossible narrative. What’s impossible about these missions? They’re famously difficult to pull off, with death-defying stunts that require Hunt and his buddies to precisely understand their surroundings, down to the millimeter and the temperature and pull of gravity. It’s thrilling to watch, and thrilling to experience, for sure — but it’s a reality that waits for us. In the future, the way we trust our senses will be radically altered. You know, because you’ve felt it, too.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theaters on July 13.

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‘mission: impossible — dead reckoning part one’ review: tom cruise amps up the electrifying action but story is strictly secondary.

Hayley Atwell joins returning cast Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby in Christopher McQuarrie’s high-octane opening salvo of the two-part Ethan Hunt thriller.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

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Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

It says a lot about Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , the first chapter in the $3.5 billion franchise’s two-part seventh installment, that detailed footage of one of the film’s most spectacular stunts was released in full online last December. The extended clip showcased the meticulous planning and execution of a sequence in which Tom Cruise as superspy Ethan Hunt drives a motorcycle off a cliff and plunges 4,000 feet into a ravine, separating from the bike and BASE jumping the final 500 feet to the ground.

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, and Mariela Garriga in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

Christopher McQuarrie
Bruce Geller
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Hayley Atwell
Ving Rhames
1.4K User reviews
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81 Metascore
17 wins & 64 nominations total

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Trivia The frequent delays caused by COVID-19 ballooned the budget to $291 million, making it the most expensive Mission: Impossible film (surpassing Fallout, $178 million), the most expensive film of Tom Cruise 's career (again surpassing Fallout), and the most expensive film ever produced by Paramount (surpassing Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) , $217 million). The insurance company Chubb originally gave Paramount only £4.4 million (about $5.4 million) for the delays, arguing that the cast and crew could still fulfill their duties to the production despite being infected with COVID-19. Paramount sued Chubb in 2021, and the two companies settled in 2022. In 2023, Chubb gave Paramount a £57 million (about $71 million) payout for the COVID-caused delays, reducing the film's budget to about $220 million, which still makes it the most expensive film for Cruise, Paramount, and the franchise.
Goofs Steam trains, especially moving at high speeds, need to be continuously provided with fuel, in this case coal. With the engineers killed and the controls opened all the way, the locomotive would have gradually slowed down and come to a halt as the pressure in the boiler dropped. That train would never have reached the bridge for that distance with no coal provided. Since the early 1900s, when firebox coal consumption exceeded the efforts of two men, the trains have used mechanical stokers. The coal would continue feeding without one missing coal shoveler.

[from trailer]

Eugene Kittridge : Your days of fighting for the so-called greater good are over. This is our chance to control the truth. The concepts of right and wrong for everyone for centuries to come. You're fighting to save an ideal that doesn't exist. Never did. You need to pick a side.

Crazy credits Disclaimer as one of the last entries in the end titles scroll: "The production company would like to make it clear that at no point were vehicles driving on the Spanish Steps. These sequences were filmed at a set on a studio backlot."
Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Most Anticipated Franchises Returning in 2023 (2023)
Soundtracks The Mission: Impossible Theme Written by Lalo Schifrin

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Jul 12, 2023
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July 12, 2023 (United States)
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Helsetkopen, Møre og Romsdal, Norway (motorcycle jump)
Paramount Pictures
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$291,000,000 (estimated)
$172,135,383
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Jul 16, 2023
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Tom Cruise Is Doing the Most to Try to Save the Movies in the New Mission Impossible

A t the end of the apocalypse, after the sun has fried every flower and tree, as the last skyscraper turns to dust, when each extant cockroach has gone belly-up with x’es for eyes, there will be one man standing tall, or somewhat tall: Tom Cruise is forever, and if that idea may have seemed mortifying 40-odd years ago, when he was mugging his way through thinly disguised navy recruitment ads or grinning and grinding in his skivvies to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll,” it’s more palatable now. Cruise has never been a great or subtle actor, but he has grown into a perfectly watchable one , and that has come to mean more at a time when the movies are shrinking, literally and metaphorically. He’s the star attraction of the seventh Mission: Impossible film, Dead Reckoning Part One, and he carries the film ably on his back, along with his always-at-the-ready parachute. Cruise, still in love with what big mainstream movies used to be, has become a chivalric dreamer, striving to ensure their survival by sheer will. Maybe he can pull it off and maybe he can’t. But at least there’s some pleasure to be had in watching him try.

If you’re fond of MacGuffins, you’ll love Dead Reckoning Part One, whose central thingie is a two-piece key that can be used to control an instance of artificial intelligence gone rogue, a manmade smarty-pants that has beehived into an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful entity known, cleverly, as the Entity. Basically, it’s all just an excuse for Cruise—returning as Impossible Mission Force veteran Ethan Hunt—to do stuff like ride motorcycles off cliffs and drive teeny-tiny cars down Rome’s Spanish Steps. Cruise’s devotion to practical action and his insistence on doing most of his own stunts, many of them quite dangerous, are already the stuff of legend, or at least a bunch of press releases, and it’s not giving too much away to say that the plot of Dead Reckoning Part One —directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who has been pulling the franchise’s various strings and levers since 2015’s Rogue Nation —is virtually unfollowable after about the first third. The story exists only as flimsy interstitial tissue between the Tom-centric stunts, but maybe that’s enough. Ostensibly greater movies have given us less.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

All you need to know going in, really, is that every woman for whom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt expresses even the tiniest bit of affection is doomed. But not right away, which means that Dead Reckoning brings back Rebecca Ferguson’s silky-steely Ilsa Faust, of the most engaging characters from the franchise’s last two entries, Fallout (2018) and Rogue Nation (2015) . She, apparently, has one-half of the much-desired-by-many-parties key, which makes her a target of, well, everybody: We first see in her in the corner of the world where she’s been hiding out, the Arabian Desert near Yemen. Ethan shows up on horseback, a dazzling sight wrapped in scarves and goggles designed to shield him from the swirly, sandy wind. There’s an encounter, and an event. Shortly thereafter, the action shifts to IMF headquarters (“the other IMF,” as one character quips wryly), where zillions of workers in suits are rushing to make hard copies of digital information—on typewriters. You could make a whole movie about that and plenty of people would be happy, but admittedly, it would be rather low on action.

As it is, the action in Dead Reckoning zips from the desert to the office to Rome to Venice to the Austrian Alps—the locations alone are transportive, even if the plot is a mess. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames return as Ethan’s sidekicks Benji and Luther, and the three of them make almost as many solemn pronouncements about loyalty and family and friendship as Vin Diesel does in the Fast and Furious movies. Ethan stands by his team; he’s willing, he reminds us more than once, to die for them, and that includes any newbie who might enter the fold. In this case, that would be Hayley Atwell’s Grace, a pickpocket extraordinaire and sleight-of-hand expert who, at any given point in the movie, may or may not have the all-important half-key. The point is to keep it out of the hands of Ethan’s adversaries, which include Vanessa Kirby’s Alanna, AKA the White Widow, and an acrobatic assassin, Paris, played by Pom Klementieff. Ethan’s biggest enemy, though, is evil silver fox Gabriel (Esai Morales), who seeks the key to unleash chaos upon the world. Or something.

And the stunts! Isn’t that really what it’s all about? They include, but are not limited to, a gorgeously staged duel between Faust and Gabriel, set on a slender Venetian bridge: Faust wears a silky topcoat whose tails whirl about her as her sword slashes through the air, intensifying the already intense aura of Venetian mystery and drama. There is that business with the almost-miniature vintage Fiat 500 and the Spanish Steps, though rest assured, no Spanish Steps were harmed in the making of this film. The movie’s last third or so takes place in and around—but also, of course, atop—the Orient Express as it steams through the Alps. That section, already detailed in promotional videos for the film, also features Cruise speedflying—not to be confused with skydiving—over jagged mountain terrain. It’s beautiful, and it does look pretty dangerous.

Cruise has invested a great deal of emotional energy in making sure we know it’s really him doing these stunts, and you can’t blame him. In a green-screen movie world, where the idea of excitement, if not the thing itself, can be filled in long after filming is done, it’s rare to be able to watch a human being move like this. Cruise is muscular, feisty, nimble—but he does have bones, like everyone else, and those bones are now 61 years old. He’s the last survivor of his generation of action stars. Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis have moved on, by necessity or choice, but Cruise still wants to do some version of what he has always done, whether it’s flying, running, or wrestling down random baddies on top of a moving train. Ethan Hunt is a grave presence—a recurring flashback in Dead Reckoning features snippets of a murder that looms large in his psyche, apparently influencing his every move. But Cruise doesn’t have a naturally grave persona; he has to work at it, and so he does.

At a certain point in Dead Reckoning, Ethan is required to smile at one of the women in his orbit. She has just said something nice to him, or about him, and he must respond appropriately. So he stiffens his jaw ever so slightly, and his eyes crinkle like those of a painted Santa. This expression of veiled gratitude, of being a sturdy guy who knows it’s better not to show much emotion, takes some effort, and you can see Cruise working to deliver. But even this not-quite-a-smile takes muscle and nerve. Think of it as a microstunt, less dangerous, certainly, than riding a motorcycle off a cliff, but a bit of risky business in its own right.

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Mission: impossible - dead reckoning part one and part two : release date, trailers, cast & more, we break down the characters, the ensemble cast, the plot, the release date, and more..

TAGGED AS: Action , blockbusters , movies

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch Tom Cruise drive a motorcycle off a cliff. The seventh movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise will hit theaters this July, and it looks as though it will continue Cruise’s tradition of putting increasingly jaw-dropping, death defying stunts into each one of these action flicks. But, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will just be the first half of a two-part story, as the title suggests. Ahead of the premiere of the first half of Ethan Hunt’s next mission, we’ve done our own stunt work and gathered up everything you need to know about the Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two .

When Do Parts One and Two Come Out?

Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

(Photo by Christian Black/©Paramount Pictures)

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One , the seventh film in the Crusie-led film adaptation of the ’60s and ’70s espionage TV series , hits theaters soon, on July 12, 2023. Fans won’t have to wait (that) long for the conclusion, as Part Two is set to premiere slightly under a year later, on June 28, 2024. However, filming on Part Two is currently paused due to the Writers Strike, so it’s quite possible that the release date will be delayed again.

Both movies will be exclusive theatrical releases — and if they’re anything like Top Gun: Maverick , another Cruise movie from Paramount Pictures, the same studio behind Mission: Impossible , they won’t be streaming for a while. Maverick hit Paramount+ more than 200 days after its theatrical premiere.

Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Dead Reckoning would have already been released, as Part One was originally slated for a July 2021 premiere. Delays due to the pandemic and subsequent COVID filming protocols (this is where Cruise’s viral, uh, virus rant originated) pushed the release back to 2022, then eventually to 2023.

Though it’s rare that any franchise ever truly ends, Dead Reckoning Part Two is expected to be the end of the franchise — at least as it currently exists.

Who’s Directing It?

Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie on the set of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Christopher McQuarrie , the director who took Mission: Impossible to new heights starting with Rogue Nation , the fifth film in the franchise, returns for both Part One and Part Two of Dead Reckoning . McQuarrie also co-wrote both installments with Erik Jendresen .

Who’s In It?

Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Tom Cruise first played IMF agent extraordinaire Ethan Hunt in 1996 when the original Mission: Impossible hit theaters. He’ll have just turned 61 when Dead Reckoning Part One premieres, and Part Two will supposedly be his final appearance as the character, some 28 years later.

He’ll be joined by several returning cast members, including Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames as his fellow IMF agents Benji Dunn and Luther Stickell, respectively. Rebecca Ferguson returns as ex-MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, and Henry Czerny returns as former IMF director Eugene Kittridge, a character who hasn’t been seen since the original ‘96 franchise-starter. Vanessa Kirby returns as Alanna Mitsopolis, the black market arms dealer-turned-uneasy ally to Ethan Hunt, as does Frederick Schmidt , playing her brother Zola Mitsopolis.

Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

There are lots of new additions to the franchise as well. Hayley Atwell , best known for playing Peggy Carter in the MCU, joins as Grace, a character McQuarrie described as a “ destructive force of nature ” with “somewhat ambiguous loyalties” on the franchise-focused Light the Fuse podcast . Ozark’ s Esai Morales plays the film’s primary villain, Gabriel (Morales took over for Renfield star Nicholas Hoult , who dropped out due to scheduling issues), while Guardians of the Galaxy’ s Pom Klementieff plays an assassin who works for Gabriel.

Esai Morales and Pom Klementieff in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

(Photo by ©Paramount Pictures)

Shea Whigham , recently seen in HBO’s Perry Mason , plays Jasper Briggs, an enforcer in a mysterious group known as “The Community” who is attempting to track Ethan Hunt down along with his partner, played by Greg Tarzan Davis . Charles Parnell ( Top Gun: Maverick ), Rob Delaney ( Deadpool 2 ), Indira Varma ( Obi-Wan Kenobi ), and Mark Gatiss ( Sherlock ) also star, as does The Princess Bride’ s Cary Elwes in an as-yet undisclosed role.

Recent Oscar-winner Angela Bassett , who played CIA director Erika Sloane, was originally supposed to reprise her role but couldn’t due to COVID travel restrictions.

The cast for Part Two hasn’t fully been revealed, though it’s probably safe to assume that most of the major actors from Part One will appear once more, assuming they survive the first movie. We do know, however, that Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham will join the ensemble, as will Parks & Rec’ s Nick Offerman , who plays Sydney, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

What Is Dead Reckoning About?

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Candidly speaking, the plots of the Mission: Impossible movies aren’t really their main appeal. They tend to be slick, serviceable MacGuffin chases that are an entertaining framework for banter and Tom Cruise’s insane stunts. But we do have some idea of what to expect from Dead Reckoning Part One . Here’s the official synopsis from Paramount:

“In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission — not even the lives of those he cares about most.”

Tracking down a weapon that threatens humanity before the bad guys get it? Dark forces from Ethan’s past? A deadly race around the globe, and a mysterious enemy? This is, in other words, pretty standard spy movie stuff, but few franchises are capable of pulling it off with as much style as Mission: Impossible . No specifics for the plot for Part Two have been revealed, so as not to spoil Part One , but it’s probably safe to say it won’t deviate too far from the tried and true formula, even as it serves to wrap up loose ends from Part One .

How Long Will It Be?

Part One is on the longer side. Without credits, it boasts a runtime of 2 hours and 36 minutes. The length of Part Two , of course, is TBD.

How Many Trailers Are There?

While there have been no trailers for Part Two yet, naturally, there have been a few for Part One . The first , which was light on dialogue, came out in May of 2022, more than a year before the film’s release. The full trailer came out a year later.

While they’re not quite trailers, Paramount also released a trio of behind-the-scenes featurettes, one of which centers on Cruise’s most dangerous and ambitious stunt yet — driving a motorcycle off a cliff and parachuting to safety. It’s wild, and it certainly inspires a deeper appreciation for the work that went into the stunt, but if you don’t want to spoil the majesty of it all, it’s probably best to check it out after you’ve seen the film.

Is Tom Cruise Doing His Own Stunts?

Did you not see the featurette right there? The man drove a motorcycle off a cliff!

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theaters on July 12, 2023. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two opens in theaters on June 28, 2024.

Thumbnail image by ©Paramount Pictures

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‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ Review: Breathtaking Stunts Highlight a Top-Shelf Tom Cruise Sequel

With jaw-dropping set pieces and a pulsating sound design, director Christopher McQuarrie delivers one of this summer’s best theatrical events

mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-1-tom-cruise-hayley-atwell

Is Tom Cruise our last bonafide movie star? Or at least one of the few remnants of an elite group of big-screen heartthrobs who leave us saying, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to?” We’ve heard several versions of this question asked again and again over the years, especially on the heels of 2022’s astonishing and disarmingly nostalgic “Top Gun: Maverick,” a heart-swelling legacy-quel that deservedly re-established and reinforced Cruise’s status as a dying breed of larger-than-life screen hero.

While it might be futile to ponder the same query once more (come on, the answer is a resounding “yes”), that doesn’t mean Cruise is done reminding us why there won’t be another one after him to burn just as brightly. And that’s not only because of our era of scattered eyeballs and shortened attention spans that sadly deems the all-encompassing brand of “movie star” nearly obsolete. The short of it is, there is no length Cruise isn’t willing to go to wow and entertain audiences as a terrifically versatile actor, risk-taking producer and multi-hyphenate Hollywood mainstay, while preserving his unique cinematic legacy.

Just direct your attention to his latest “Mission: Impossible” entry, “Dead Reckoning Part One,” the pulsating near-finale of the finest ongoing contemporary action franchise. In this chapter, fluidly directed by Christopher McQuarrie (of also M:I 5, 6 and 2024’s “Dead Reckoning Part Two”), Cruise runs like the wind in his signature style and brings home the emotional core of Bravo-Echo-One-One IMF agent Ethan Hunt.

He effortlessly sells cheesy yet delicious zingers like he still dwells in Hollywood circa-‘80s/90s, steers several mind-blowing, high-wire stunts and set-pieces (one while driving a canary-yellow Fiat Cinquecento in Rome) and actually jumps off a cliff on a motorcycle, the most dangerous number of his acting career. All this is elevated by James Mather’s frequently seat-shaking sound design, with “seat-shaking” in no way being used a metaphor. This is the movie Nicole Kidman must have meant in that AMC ad when she said, “Sound that I can feel.” Talk about the vitality of theatrical moviegoing.

In that regard, the team behind this new “Mission: Impossible”—like the makers of all the installments that came before it—seem to know on a deep level why viewers flock to this group of action movies: the indispensable big-screen proficiency and collective soul of the series first and the plot of individual chapters, second.

Truth be told, “Dead Reckoning Part One”—written by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen—leaves something to be desired in that latter department, making its blessedly anti-Artificial Intelligence story a little too convoluted for its own good. Judging simply by how many times a character here and there launches into a summary statement like, “So let me get this straight…” for the audience’s benefit, it feels like the writing duo has been aware of the labored complexity of their narrative during scripting and actively looked for opportunities to over-explain what crazy thing just happened.

Then again, it’s partly thanks to these occasional (and often purposely funny) recaps that you piece together the plot that involves a “truth-eating parasite” called The Entity, a four-dimensional chess game with a vanishing algorithm (as someone puts), and a McGuffin of a two-part key that unlocks something that the fate of the entire world depends on, naturally. After all, this vaporous and indecipherable being retains all the knowledge in the world, with the ability to infiltrate each and every governmental, military and financial system. If this doesn’t require the services of the IMF, then what is their purpose?

Other than Hunt himself, trying to secure the key to The Entity are a number of returning figures: Simon Pegg’s affably frantic Benji, Ving Rhames’ cool Luther and Rebecca Ferguson’s classically enigmatic Ilsa Faust, perhaps the best thing that happened to the franchise since Cruise. Trying to capture and sell The Entity are Vanessa Kirby’s shadowy White Widow and Hayley Atwell’s solitary and agile pickpocket, Grace.

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part I"

There are also various tough baddies in the mix, chief amongst them is the Biblically named Gabriel (a memorably sinister Esai Morales), someone enmeshed with The Entity itself. There is also Pom Klementieff’s Paris, a relentless fighter and a pair of governmental operatives pursuing Hunt: Greg Tarzan Davis’ Degas and Shea Whigham’s Briggs. And don’t forget the notable return of Kittridge (Henry Czerny), Hunt’s famous IMF frenemy.

Globe-trotting over the mountains and in the depths of the ocean with a magnificent opening sequence set in a submarine, “Dead Reckoning Part One” subscribes to a simple philosophy around AI, one that today’s decision makers need to hear loud and clear: Control (if not destroy) it, before it becomes too monstrous to develop a mind of its own—a fear at the heart of many vintage sci-fi dystopias and the latest WGA strike alike. Except, the film is set in a world where this fear has already become a reality. In that, our human-generated opponent has become so “artificially” smart it has learned how to disguise itself and surpass its own inventor.

The idea, while not exactly fresh, is a frightening one. But McQuarrie and miracle worker DP Fraser Taggart manage to have a lot of visual fun with the aforesaid concept of invisibility, while not succumbing to the doom-and-gloom of the real world, unlike other action franchises like “Batman” or “James Bond” that gradually darkened their respective worlds. McQuarrie’s style remains light on its feet and constantly remembers that these movies are supposed to be crowd-pleasing, exciting events that take themselves just seriously enough. In that, McQuarrie pulls off an intricate cat-and-mouse chase in Venice, as well as a heart-stopping airport-set action sequence with crystal-clear editing and choreography, which by itself is enough to make “Dead Reckoning Part One” a top-shelf “Mission: Impossible” entry.

And the team above and below the line don’t stop there, ending with an Alpine train sequence amid the Belle Epoque designs of the glorious Orient Express, crashing it wagon after wagon in a breathtakingly elaborate set-piece that could best be described as “Titanic on land.” Rest assured, the seat-shaking sound design will persist and escalate.

Still, it is Cruise himself that unlocks this extraordinary and, in the end, surprisingly poignant franchise start to finish, the key to it all even when he’s not dangling from a Dubai skyscraper or attaching himself to an in-flight Airbus. Lest we forget, he is one hell of a dramatic actor with the sharpest of blue-eyed stares, carrying the weight of a rootless character through several savagely emotional moments, one of them, genuinely heartbreaking. What better mission could there be this summer other than witnessing our perpetual cinematic maverick deliver yet another full-scale cinematic experience? Should you choose to accept it, of course.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opens exclusively in theaters July 12.

Movie Review

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is the mother of all self-aware AI panic flicks

Paramount’s seventh mission: impossible is the franchise’s biggest, silliest, and most stunt-filled tom cruise delivery system yet. but its self-awareness is more of a bug than a welcome feature..

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

Share this story

A man hanging from a seat in an inverted train car in which most of the furniture has fallen to the end of the car. A woman is hanging from the man’s legs.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One being waylaid for years by a global pandemic only to ultimately hit theaters at a time when the public’s becoming more attuned to the spread of AI tools does a lot to make the film feel eerily prescient — not about the state of the technology itself but the degree to which it’s on people’s minds. In his latest outing as Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise delivers exactly the kind of seasoned, charismatic, and more-than-put-upon performance necessary to sell the seventh installment of an action franchise about an aging super spy whose longtime team of allies are all getting on in years.

But for all of Cruise’s pitch-perfectness as a stunt-oriented action hero and director Christopher McQuarrie having a keen eye for crafting spectacular action set pieces that genuinely feel like they’d be impossible to survive, Dead Reckoning Part One can’t stop getting in its own way with an overreliance on self-referential jokes, and pre-chewed cliches.

Set some time after the events of Mission: Impossible – Fallout , Dead Reckoning Part One tells the winding and often rather circuitous story of how Impossible Mission Force operative Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team of fellow agents are tasked with saving the world from a sentient, Machiavellian artificial intelligence that has the power to set off the next series of global wars. Throughout the film, no one seems to fully understand just what “The Entity” — Dead Reckoning ’s deeply unimaginative name for its amorphous, faceless, mostly-digital antagonist — is or what it was originally meant to be used for. But after a mysterious accident unleashes the program into the wild along with the two halves of a physical key necessary to control or destroy it, a covert international arms race is set off with multiple world powers — including the US — vying to get their hands on it in hopes of shaping the future in their favor.

The Mission: Impossible movies have always prioritized suspense, intrigue, and action ahead of telling stories that make all that much sense. But Dead Reckoning spends so much time trying (and often failing) to clearly explain things — like what the Entity is and how it’s unlike anything Ethan, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) have ever encountered before — that the movie frequently feels firmly grounded in parody territory.

Aside from Cruise, who delivers a surprisingly restrained, contemplative performance as Hunt — who never says anything about feeling like a 59-year-old man being portrayed by a 62-year-old but still feels appropriately aged — virtually everyone else in the film feels curiously stuck in a higher, more excited gear of action movie acting that tends to feel hollow. This becomes especially apparent in the movie’s many dramatically shot exposition dump sequences, where the over-the-shoulder glances are so sharply choreographed and executed that it’s easy to imagine the actors practicing them while listening to the most melodramatic music possible.

But while there are plenty of instances in which the vibe skews a little off, there are also a handful of moments built around new characters like Hayley Atwell’s Grace and Pom Klementieff that stand out because of how well the actors are able to compliment rather than approximate, Cruise’s energy. Throughout the film, it’s clear that while Paramount might have longer-term plans for the larger Mission: Impossible franchise, Ethan Hunt won’t always be the centerpiece, and one of the more impressive things about Dead Reckoning is how well it’s able to telegraph that a changing of the guard is on its way without feeling like an overwrought goodbye to Cruise.

What’s most impressive, of course, are the movie’s action sequences — or at least, they would be were it not for the way that Dead Reckoning ’s ad campaign has prominently featured (and kind of spoiled) many the more inspired set pieces that take Ethan and co. around the globe. In the same way that Dead Reckoning ’s delay wound up making its AI focus feel in sync with the current news cycle, the film premiering just a couple weeks after Fast X — which also featured a cartoonish car chase through a cramped Italian city — creates an unfortunate sense of deja vu that’s amplified by its many, many nostalgia plays.

For all the groundwork it’s laying for the franchise’s future, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (probably correctly) assumes that it can play to its core audience by rehashing beats from previous films and jazzing them up with a heavy pour of meta humor meant to make you feel in on the joke of it all. But while that approach might work for folks who’ve been faithfully following Ethan Hunt’s adventures for the past 27 years, it could be a tough sell for newcomers — especially considering that this is just half of the story that next year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two is meant to finish.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One also stars Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Frederick Schmidt, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Shea Whigham. The movie hits theaters on July 12th.

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Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Reviews: Critics Share Strong First Reactions

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Tom Cruise

Fans now know critics' initial reactions from the first official screenings of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 .

Paramount is set to bring the longest Mission: Impossible movie to date with Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible 7 , serving as the first of a two-part finale for this 27-year-old action saga.

Featuring an incredible cast of actors with credits in other massive blockbuster franchises, Tom Cruise looks to bring the heat with Ethan Hunt for a seventh time before the franchise officially ends in 2024.

Mission Impossible 7 Earns Rave Critic Reviews

Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell

But how are critics reacting to the first Mission: Impossible outing in five years?

Critics took to social media to share their first reactions to Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 after the movie had its world premiere event.

Screen Rant's Joe Deckelmeier called this his new favorite movie from the series, offering plenty of praise to franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell in the process:

"'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning' this phenomenal! Hayley Atwell STEALS ever scene she’s in. This is now my favorite 'Mission: Impossible' film. With the AI being the villain, this feels like a cautionary tale. The action had my heart rate elevated. That train scene is mind blowing!"

Collider's Steven Weintraub described Mission Impossible 7 as "incredible" and "one of the best films" he's seen in 2023, noting that fans need to see it on the big screen if possible:

"'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning' is incredible. The fastest 2 hr 30 min movie I’ve seen in a long time. One of the best films I’ve seen this year and Tom Cruise has done it again. Demands to be seen on the biggest screen. Cannot recommend this movie enough."

Weintraub was also surprised at how much he enjoyed Atwell's performance, calling her "a fantastic addition" to the Mission: Impossible movies:

"Big surprise was how much I loved Hayley Atwell in the film. I’ve always been a fan but she is a fantastic addition to the franchise and is a HUGE part of the movie."

BackstageOL described the sequel as "a culmination of the highlights" of everything in the series so far while also being a perfect set-up for its 2024 sequel

"Can confirm.... 'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning' is a PURE ADRENALINE RUSH!! 'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning' feels like a culmination of the highlights in the 'MI' series while delivering on the important story beats and sets up part 2 BEAUTIFULLY! The action set pieces will BLOW YOUR MIND"

Collider's Perri Nemiroff called Mission Impossible 7 "another winner for the franchise" and highlighted how good the production value and set pieces were, praising the way the team "[captured] things in camera" visually:

"'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - Part 1' is another winner for the franchise. Yet again, the production value is THROUGH THE ROOF with some of the most well-defined and exhilarating set pieces photographed in ways that truly make you feel like you’re in the middle of the action. The emphasis on capturing things in camera makes a HUGE difference, and you can feel it. Also really dug the mission this time around and how the technology they’re after factors into the characters' individual arcs."

Nemiroff continued to praise Cruise and Atwell's performances, along with Rebecca Ferguson, teasing a scene with Ferguson and Cruise that "had [her] in tears [from] laughing so much" while celebrating the 2-hour-43-minute epic:

"Tom Cruise is A+ as always and Rebecca Ferguson continues to be a favorite, but franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell wound up being the MAJOR standout for me. She can do it all. Action, comedy, a capable hero in many respects while trying to get her sea legs in others. One of the most captivating performances/arcs, and just a hugely enjoyable character to watch. She’s got a scene with Tom that involves a Fiat 500 that truly had me in tears I was laughing so much. One more set piece shoutout — there’s a particular scene within the sequence on the train that had my jaw on the floor. 2 hours and 43 minutes that I will happily watch over and over.

Uproxx's Mike Ryan gave props to director Christopher McQuarrie for his "ambitious examination of/meditation on AI" as it shines a light on how the technology may affect the real world :

"'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE' works as Christopher McQuarrie’s ambitious examination of/meditation on AI and the dangerous path we might be on. (He doesn’t like it) With the inherent nature of being “part one” (said that a lot lately), not as satisfying as 'FALLOUT'"

Gizmondo's Germain Lussier saw Mission Impossible 7 as a "dynamite, timely story" with an excellent cast of characters, and he teased that the film's final set piece is one of the top three moments in franchise history:

"'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1' is fantastic. Dynamite, timely story. Excellent new characters. Huge variety of action and a final set piece that ranks top 2-3 all-time for the franchise. It gets a little dense at times but its pace & intensity more than cover that.

Fandango's Erik Davis "had the absolute best time" with this new movie, complimenting the sequel for feeling complete while also leaving fans "dying for what comes next:"

"I had the absolute best time watching 'Mission: Impossible' - an impeccably made action film that does not stop entertaining. Each action sequence is long, crazy & intense. The story is big & sprawling, but I like how it both felt complete & left you dying for what comes next"

Davis also praised "the Rome chase & the train sequence" as his favorite parts of the movie, offering specific praise to Pom Klementieff for playing "a wicked villain with a cool arc:"

"I watched 'Mission: Impossible' in a Dolby house, and DAMN! The sound on this thing is incredible - fav parts are the Rome chase & the train sequence. Biggest scene stealer goes to Pom Klementieff, who plays a wicked villain with a cool arc. Pom having a great summer!"

The Wrap's Umberto Gonzalez added his own praise for the set pieces and the villain, urging fans to see this movie on an IMAX screen for the full experience:

"'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning' is FANTASTIC with insane set pieces & a very timely villain. It demands that you see it in IMAX."

The Ankler's Jeff Sneider felt Mission Impossible 7 didn't have the same emotion that made Cruise's work in Top Gun: Maverick great, also hinting at some minor issues with the villain's backstory and "Ethan’s rushed bond w/ [Hayley Atwell's] Grace:"

"'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7' is VERY good, though it lacks the emotion that made 'MAVERICK' great. The climactic train sequence is AWESOME & the entire cast RULES, from my man Tom Cruise to the great Shea Whigham. There are 2 minor issues: Villain backstory & Ethan’s rushed bond w/Grace."

Will Mission Impossible 7 Be a Hit For Fans?

With Tom Cruise fighting for Mission Impossible 7 to get its shine in as many premium theaters as possible, these reviews certainly mark a great start for the latest entry in his spy/thriller saga.

And even though it will face plenty of stiff competition this summer, coming two weeks after Indiana Jones 5 and one week before both Barbie and Oppenheimer , the MI7 team likes its chances to be a hit this summer blockbuster season.

While none of the Mission: Impossible movies have broken $800 million at the global box office , almost every film has surpassed the totals of the one before it, with 2018's Mission: Impossible - Fallout ranking at the top with nearly $787 million.

And with Cruise still riding the immense highs he earned from Top Gun: Maverick , which is currently the 12th-highest-grossing movie ever made , he could have a real shot at making waves this summer with yet another legacy series.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 will hit theaters on July 10.

Mission Impossible 8: Release Date, Cast & Everything We Know About Dead Reckoning Part 2

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Cruise control: An homage to the relentless reliability of 'Mission: Impossible'

Linda Holmes

Tom Cruise returns again (and again, and again, and again) as Ethan Hunt in the latest Mission: Impossible film — Dead Reckoning Part One. Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance hide caption

Tom Cruise returns again (and again, and again, and again) as Ethan Hunt in the latest Mission: Impossible film — Dead Reckoning Part One.

More than Marvel or DC, more than Jurassic World , maybe even more than James Bond with its revolving 007s, the Mission: Impossible franchise runs on its ability to meet expectations. Not just any expectations — high expectations. People go in wanting top-flight action, beautiful locations, a modest amount of melancholy character business about Ethan Hunt's mounting personal losses, Tom Cruise doing a lot of his own stunts, and an uncomplicated story in which a bad guy has (or wants) something and a good guy has to go get it. And that's exactly what they get.

And unlike Fast & Furious , this franchise hasn't shape-shifted over and over. It has remained remarkably stable at its core, despite taking several films to settle on writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and changing up the women in Hunt's life every movie or two.

'Mission: Impossible' is back, but will you accept it, or will it self-destruct?

It is axiomatic even within this universe that the idea of the government's underground "Impossible Mission Force" is absurd; the films have even started having characters comment on it. It also seems unlikely that Hunt would be forever on the edge of being disowned and deemed a traitor, given that no human being has ever been forced to demonstrate his trustworthiness so many times. If there were really a spy like Hunt — he flies helicopters! he climbs skyscrapers! he does close-up magic! — you have to assume he would be popular with spy leadership instead of constantly seeming like he's at risk of a negative performance review. But these things are utterly unimportant, because I know them going in, and the fact that they make no sense (and repeat over and over) is a given.

In fact, I'm not sure anything has ever really surprised me in one of these movies, which might seem contradictory given that they are, in part, "thrillers." By the time an M:I guy who has seemed to be a good guy is revealed as a stealth bad guy, you've probably spent a good amount of time thinking, "Who's the stealth bad guy in this movie? Oh, I bet it's him." There don't tend to be complex motivations behind any of what happens; the villains are generally just kind of international dirtbags who have something they shouldn't. A list, a bioweapon (twice!), some launch codes, some data and of course, the sentimental favorite: big shiny balls of plutonium. In the case of the new installment Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , the battle is over two halves of a key that, in some gauzily defined way, can be combined to stop a godlike AI spoken of only as ... The Entity.

This all probably sounds like criticism, and it emphatically is not. Talking about the predictability or thinness of a story in a Mission: Impossible movie is like talking about the nutrition information on a box of Pop-Tarts — if you were focused on this aspect of the thing you are about to consume, you would have chosen something else. The story of The Entity is somehow vague and overexplained, not to mention unpleasantly adjacent to a kind of "tech as replacement for an all-knowing God" attitude that the movie doesn't actually care about, and that it doesn't really give the audience much reason to care about either. And that turns out to be completely fine.

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One . Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance hide caption

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One .

Because what Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One cares about is jumping a motorcycle off a mountain and then creating, though its marketing, an entire sub-narrative about the 60+ action star who trained to do the stunt himself and shot it on day one so they wouldn't waste any money if he died . What it cares about is a train dangling from a mountain. A car chase that is as witty and inventive as any you'll see anywhere. A fabulous race through an airport full of glass walls. Refreshing the cast with a woman as charming as Hayley Atwell, who is wonderfully entertaining as a scrappy pickpocket named Grace. Relying on Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, as Benji and Luther, to anchor the Impossible Mission Force team.

Movie Reviews

Tom cruise hangs on for dear life to his 'mission' to save the movies.

The biggest problem (if there is one) with Dead Reckoning is not its story, per se, but how much time it spends explaining it. It's worth noting that, as with action blockbusters generally, these films have gotten longer ... and longer ... and longer. At around two hours and 45 minutes, Dead Reckoning is roughly an hour longer than the original Mission: Impossible . It tries heroically to avoid dragging by featuring such genuinely exciting and inventive action sequences. But two hours and 45 minutes is a long time to sit in a seat having your needs met, and every time the film slows down to discuss (1) The Entity (a term that sounds sillier and sillier with repetition), (2) the keys, where they've been, and what they may open, or (3) the entire concept of a godlike AI and what it might be able to do, it gets a little ... well, fast-forwardable for future home viewers.

But again, this is what one expects. It is film as both exquisitely crafted entertainment and ruthless consumerism, fulfilling the order made at the counter with the certainty of fast-food fries that will always be the same – and will always be good.

There is some cost to this. For whatever reason, Mission: Impossible avoids the questions that are so often asked about Marvel movies in particular, about what Ryan Coogler or Chloé Zhao would be doing if they weren't making superhero movies, or about what the actors would be doing if they weren't tied into these franchises for years. Tom Cruise has mostly stopped doing the more intimate projects in comedy and drama that he did earlier in his career; he's a three-time acting Oscar nominee who pretty much does just action blockbusters now. He seems thrilled and delighted to be in this half-actor half-stuntman lane, and at 61, that's certainly his right. But there doesn't seem to be, for instance, another Magnolia in his future.

I do worry that having one's expectations precisely met – neither exceeded nor even simply upended – is becoming the only way to get people into theaters. Yes, perhaps we will take a risk for something at home that we can always turn off if we don't like it. But to get audiences to a theater, does a film need to be a sequel or a piece of IP or a franchise like this that delivers and satisfies, as neatly as a bed with hospital corners? There are signs that we're not quite there yet; Everything Everywhere All at Once did great, for instance, and an expectation-meeter it was not. But I worry about the longer-term difficulty of getting people into theaters to see something more ... well, more weird (not that all the Entity talk doesn't get a little weird).

Seeing a movie that is so very good at doing what it promises drives home that point that it takes both movies that do what they promise and movies that do something you couldn't have anticipated to make up an industry that thrives.

This piece also appeared in NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what's making us happy.

Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify .

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Mission: Impossible

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Watch Mission: Impossible with a subscription on Peacock, Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Full of special effects, Brian DePalma's update of Mission: Impossible has a lot of sweeping spectacle, but the plot is sometimes convoluted.

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Mission: impossible: dead reckoning, part one, common sense media reviewers.

Lots of action violence in excellent spy thriller.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One Movie Poster: A collage of the characters' faces

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Plenty of the usual spy movie betrayals and killin

Ethan Hunt operates in a world of violence and des

Several main characters are White, but key charact

Characters are in near-constant peril. Shoot-outs,

Nightclub scene with "sexy" dancers in the backgro

A couple of uses of "dammit," "hell," "goddammit,"

A Fiat makes a comical extended appearance.

Positive Messages

Plenty of the usual spy movie betrayals and killings, but the heroes also know it's important to look out for others' well-being, even if you don't know them -- and even if they don't know you're doing it.

Positive Role Models

Ethan Hunt operates in a world of violence and destruction but also works selflessly and sacrifices much to keep world order. He's brave, and he and his team demonstrate integrity, humility, compassion, teamwork, perseverance, and excellent communication skills.

Diverse Representations

Several main characters are White, but key characters are also played by Black, Latino, and Asian actors. Higher-ups in the intelligence agency and armed forces are ethnically/racially diverse. Women are portrayed as smart, cunning, and extraordinarily physically capable. That said, Ethan is also clearly the hero, and he does a fair amount of rescuing the female characters -- although, to be fair, many characters come to one another's aid throughout: Women save Ethan, women save other women, men save Ethan, Ethan saves men, and so on.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Characters are in near-constant peril. Shoot-outs, one with mercenaries using automatic weapons and a heroic character using a long-distance sniper gun in self-defense, resulting in a high body count. Other fatalities, including a key character. Lots of heavily choreographed action violence, including intense fight sequences with knives, swords, lead pipes, and hitting heads against a wall. Multiple stabbings. Car accidents. Explosions. Dead bodies with a close-up on faces.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Nightclub scene with "sexy" dancers in the background; a woman is briefly touched under her breast.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A couple of uses of "dammit," "hell," "goddammit," and one "what the fu--" that cuts off.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Parents need to know.

Parents need to know that Tom Cruise returns as Agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One, the first movie of the two-part seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise. In many ways, it's more family friendly than, say, your average James Bond movie: There's no drinking or smoking, women are more empowered than they are objectified or romanced, and language is limited to "goddammit," "hell," and an unfinished "what the fu--." That said, the action violence and peril are nonstop (though not graphic). Both villains and heroes use guns, people die, and there are intense physical fights with knives, swords, a pipe, and a shovel. The Mission: Impossible movies are known for their astonishing daredevil stunts, which Cruise is famous for doing himself, and those are definitely here -- as is a message about the importance of doing the right thing, even when no one knows you're doing it. Ethan Hunt and his team also demonstrate character strengths like teamwork, perseverance, and courage. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (12)
Kids say (25)

Based on 12 parent reviews

Everything you want from a summer spy thriller action blockbuster

Very intense movie for young teens., what's the story.

In MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE, Ethan Hunt ( Tom Cruise ) and his IMF team are tasked with tracking down a powerful skeleton key that's believed to open access to all digitally controlled networks. With intelligence agencies from various world governments -- as well as crime syndicates -- in a race to find and control the key, Ethan encounters dark forces from his past who are working with a new, mysterious entity that threatens the future of humanity.

Is It Any Good?

For parents who want to watch action movies with older tweens and teens, Cruise and longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie make it possible with this riveting thriller. Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One is a perfect example of Cruise Control, and the hands-on star and producer outdoes himself, delivering an edge-of-your-seat actioner that pulls you in immediately and never lets go until the screen goes dark. It's one long, audible gasp. Cruise clearly takes the franchise's name to heart, creating action sequences that seem impossible to pull off -- and yet he does. And "he" really does -- making sure the camera captures his face as he rides his motorcycle off the side of a mountain or climbs up a falling train or drives down the Spanish steps in Rome backward.

That particular car chase scene clearly aims to best both Bullitt and The French Connection -- and it succeeds. In those classics, audiences were entranced by Steve McQueen flying down the enormous hills of San Francisco's main thoroughfares, or Gene Hackman speeding through busy New York City traffic. Taking note, Cruise spins through the cobblestones, narrow passages, and famous landmarks of Rome in a tiny, manual Fiat. It's as exciting as it is hilarious, with the filmmakers ensuring that viewers' eyes don't glaze over during the long scene by keeping the comedy coming. Add to this the gorgeousness of the many international locations -- Arab Emirates, Austrian Alps, Venice -- and a simple story that doesn't require overthinking, and Cruise's spy thriller reminds us: This is why we go to the movies.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One . How does it compare to the violence in previous M:I movies? Is it what you expect from this type of movie?

Do you consider Ethan Hunt a role model? How do he and his team demonstrate courage , integrity , self-control , compassion , empathy, perseverance , and teamwork ? Why are these important life skills?

How does this Mission: Impossible movie compare to its biggest rival, the James Bond movies , in its depictions of women? Why does that matter?

What is a MacGuffin? How is this idea/device used in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One ? What other MacGuffins can you identify in other films you've seen?

A villain says "the truth is vanishing." What does this mean, and why is media literacy an essential skill? What role do you think media and tech/AI play in your daily life?

Movie Details

In theaters : July 12, 2023
On DVD or streaming : October 10, 2023
Cast : Tom Cruise , Hayley Atwell , Esai Morales
Director : Christopher McQuarrie
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
Studio : Paramount Pictures
Genre : Action/Adventure
Topics : Adventures , Great Boy Role Models
Character Strengths : Communication , Courage , Integrity , Perseverance , Teamwork
Run time : 163 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : intense sequences of violence and action, some language and suggestive material
Award : Common Sense Selection
Last updated : April 27, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One' lauded for action-packed drama: 'Impeccably made'

"Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" has yet to rocket into theaters, but the film is already shaping up to be a tour-de-force action flick as far as critics are concerned .

The Christopher McQuarrie-directed action thriller starring Tom Cruise , set for a July 12 release, had its global premiere at the Spanish Steps in Rome on Monday. Cruise, looking dapper in an all-blue suit, appeared on the red carpet alongside his "Dead Reckoning" castmates, including co-star Hayley Atwell .

The latest film in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, "Dead Reckoning" follows the adrenaline-pumping stunt shenanigans of Cruise's superspy Ethan Hunt as he wards off deadly forces.

So far, the film has earned rave reviews from critics for its stunning action sequences and compelling performances.

Erik Davis of Fandango called "Dead Reckoning" an "impeccably made action film that does not stop entertaining."

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

" Each action sequence is long, crazy and intense, " Davis wrote on Twitter. "The story is big and sprawling, but I like how it both felt complete and left you dying for what comes next."

Perri Nemiroff of Collider said the film is "another winner for the franchise," including the addition of "Mission: Impossible" freshman Atwell.

"Tom Cruise is A+ as always and Rebecca Ferguson continues to be a favorite, but franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell wound up being the major standout for me," Nemiroff tweeted . "She can do it all. Action, comedy, a capable hero in many respects while trying to get her sea legs in others."

While Screen Rant's Joe Deckelmeier commended the film's action, he also noted how "Dead Reckoning" incorporates new technology into the film's plot. " With (artificial intelligence) being the villain, this feels like a cautionary tale, " Deckelmeier wrote on Twitter.

Germain Lussier, a senior entertainment reporter at Gizmodo, wrote that the film "gets a little dense at times, but its pace and intensity more than cover that."

" 'Dead Reckoning Part One' is fantastic, " Lussier tweeted. "Huge variety of action and a final set piece that ranks top 2-3 all-time for the franchise."

More 'Dead Reckoning': Tom Cruise races through Rome in 20 minutes of 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning' footage

'Top tier Martin Scorsese': 'Killers of the Flower Moon' gets rapturous reception at Cannes

Contributing: Brian Truitt, USA TODAY

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Debuts With Near-Perfect Score at Rotten Tomatoes

The early reviews for Mission: Impossible 7 are heaping high praise onto the movie's action scenes.

The new action sequel Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a hit with the critics. Set to premiere in theaters on July 12, the film's early reviews are coming in from critics at Rotten Tomatoes , and the movie has debuted with a near-perfect score. As of this writing, it's opened at 98% fresh based on 87 reviews, with just two of them labeling the film as "rotten." Some reviews have given the sequel especially high praise with some even saying this might be the best installment of the series.

" Dead Reckoning Part One is this summer’s best action blockbuster and possibly the best Mission yet – and, yes I do say that every time," says Metro's Larushka Ivan-Zadeh , giving the movie a 5-star rating.

" Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is the best film in the franchise to date and one of the best films of the year," says Danielle Solzman of Solzy at the Movies .

"Impossibly, Cruise keeps topping himself! With the help of McQuarrie, this is the best entry yet in a very good franchise," concurs Grace Randolph in her Beyond the Trailer review. "The movie is thrilling from beginning to end and manages to be both timeless and quite modern. A must for spy fans & action fans."

Giving the film ten out of ten stars, Rohan Patel of ComicBookMovie.com also wrote, "The undisputed blockbuster movie event of the summer! Tom Cruise delivers yet another action movie masterpiece, packed with jaw-dropping spectacle, pulse-pounding action, lots of heart, a scene-stealing Hayley Atwell & everything you love about Mission !"

Our own Julian Roman had some mixed thoughts in regard to the lengthy run time, but says the excellent action overcomes this. In his MovieWeb review , Roman noted, "The action scenes are incredible and worth the price of admission. Everything from the underwater open to the spectacular train climax is brilliantly shot. Practical and CGI effects are seamlessly blended with slick editing. It's obvious that McQuarrie wants to surpass the scope and scale of the previous films."

Some reviewers are stating their preference for the previous film, Fallout , but said they've enjoyed Dead Reckoning Part One nonetheless. As for the few who gave bad reviews to the movie, Alex Flood of NME says that the plot "borrows from the plot of Westworld " but doesn't turn out as well. Meanwhile, Kevin Maher of The Times was a bit more critical in his review.

"It feels like a movie that’s been assembled by an inattentive monkey, or a luckless studio intern who was handed a bucket of half-completed rushes and told, 'Go make a Covid-beating blockbuster out of that,'” the reviewer writes.

Related: Mission: Impossible 7 Clip Goes Behind the Scenes of Tom Cruise's Speedflying Stunt

Dead Reckoning Part One Debuts Strong With Early Reviews

The good news is that the overwhelming majority of the early reviews are positive. With a second installment to this story in the works, that's certainly a good sign. Of course, fans can expect a cliffhanger going in, knowing that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two will be picking up where Part One leaves off. But the consensus seems to be that the exciting action makes the film a very enjoyable ride, even if the sequel is a bit long.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will be released in movie theaters on July 12, 2023.

Screen Rant

Rotten tomatoes confirms that mission: impossible is one of the best trilogies ever – just not the one you think.

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This 20-Year-Old Tom Cruise Movie Can Lay The Blueprint For His Future After Mission: Impossible

Rebecca ferguson’s mission: impossible comments are a brutal reminder for blockbuster movies, mission impossible - dead reckoning cliffhanger ending explained.

Modern Mission: Impossible trilogy solidified as one of the best action trilogies ever made by Rotten Tomatoes.
Tom Cruise-led movies dominate the list, showcasing Mission: Impossible's rise to surpass contemporary franchises like Bond.
Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust storyline in the last three films reshaped the franchise into an elite trilogy.

Rotten Tomatoes' list of the top 300 movies ever made solidifies the prestige of the modern Mission: Impossible trilogy. Since making its first installment under the direction of Brian De Palma ( Carrie , The Untouchables ) in 1996, the Mission: Impossible film series has gradually solidified itself as one of the most exceptional action spy franchises of all time. Given the success and critical acclaim of the Bond franchise under Daniel Craig , Mission: Impossible has historically been placed in its shadow until its most recent installments made it resounding clear that Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible could do more than just compete.

The best Mission: Impossible movies have also been the best movies of their respective years, with 2018's Mission: Impossible – Fallout setting a franchise high with a 97% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. The Mission: Impossible films of the 2010s have undeniably gotten better with age, much like its seemingly superhuman star actor Cruise, who at the age of 61 is still doing his own stunts. The future of the Mission: Impossible franchise looks uncertain if Cruise departs after the highly anticipated Mission: Impossible 8 (formerly Dead Reckoning Part Two ), considering he is the face and soul of the series.

10 Biggest Details & Reveals From Mission: Impossible 8's Set Photos & Videos

The various forms of behind the scenes content for Mission: Impossible 8 has already provided some major clues for the highly anticipated sequel.

Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning Are A Great Movie Trilogy, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Dead reckoning is listed as number 61 on top 300 list.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the modern Mission: Impossible trilogy is not only one of the greatest action trilogies ever made but also one of the best movie trilogies of all time.

The last three Mission: Impossible films, Rogue Nation (2015), Fallout (2018), and Dead Reckoning (2023), all rank in Rotten Tomatoes list of the top 300 movies ever made. They are the only films of the Mission: Impossible franchise to be included on this list , and one of the few trilogies out of the 300 elite movies. The highest on the list was Dead Reckoning, earning the 61st overall spot. Other trilogies in the top 300 include Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings , Richard Linklater's Before trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and all four of the Toy Story movies.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the modern Mission: Impossible trilogy is not only one of the greatest action trilogies ever made but also one of the best movie trilogies of all time. By comparison, Casino Royale (2006) just barely cracked the Top 50% at 149th overall . Fallout ranked right behind Dead Reckoning in the 71st position, while Rogue Nation snuck in at the 269th spot. Of course, it can be argued that these three Mission: Impossible movies are not a "true" film trilogy since they are part of a larger franchise that also includes Ghost Protocol (2011) and the upcoming Mission: Impossible 8 (2025).

Tom Cruise won’t be able to do Mission: Impossible movies forever, but one of his old movies may have paved the way for his acting future.

Mission: Impossible's Last 3 Films Are Better Than Anything Else In The Franchise

Rogue nation was the launching pad for the latest outstanding installments.

While the positioning of the three Mission: Impossible films on the RT 300 list is certainly up for debate, Rogue Nation , Fallout , and Dead Reckoning all deserve to be a part of it.

The last three films of the Mission: Impossible franchise are a trilogy for Rebecca Ferguson's character Ilsa Faust , who was first introduced in Rogue Nation . Faust started out as an antagonist who became Ethan Hunt's ally and eventual romantic interest before she was given a more team-player role and killed off in Dead Reckoning . Ferguson undoubtedly played a major role in the gradual success of the franchise, becoming one of the essential characters in Fallout which also featured a dastardly Henry Cavill as a double agent. She is not set to return in the next Mission: Impossible installment.

While the positioning of the three Mission: Impossible films on the RT 300 list is certainly up for debate, as is the case with many of their selections for that matter, Rogue Nation , Fallout , and Dead Reckoning all deserve to be a part of it. The first Mission: Impossible received mostly positive reviews, while the second installment appeared to be steering the franchise in the wrong direction, earning a score of just 56% on RT. Mission: Impossible III featured a strong villain in Philip Seymour Hoffman, but it wasn't until Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation that the franchise truly found its stride , improving ever since.

Rebecca Ferguson's comments on her Mission: Impossible exit raise an important point about adding too many characters to expand film franchises.

The Next Mission: Impossible Will Ruin Its Trilogy Ranking

Mission: impossible 8 could create an impressive tetralogy.

Dead Reckoning once again raised the bar for Mission: Impossible movies, which makes the expectations for Mission: Impossible 8 seemingly insurmountable. Based on the recent track record of M:I films, if the 2025 installment isn't one of the greatest movies of all time, it will essentially fall below expectations . Cruise and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie have given no reason to doubt their handling of the franchise, and Mission: Impossible 8 has all the ingredients to become another major filmmaking achievement. Unlike other standalone Mission: Impossible projects, it will be directly linked to Dead Reckoning , and could create an elite tetralogy.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning ends on a cliffhanger setting up what's to come. We break down the film's ending & what's next for Ethan.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning is an action-adventure spy thriller from director Christopher McQuarrie. It's the seventh entry in the Mission: Impossible series and a direct sequel to Mission: Impossible – Fallout. The title will star Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ving Rhames.

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Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One off to a rough but promising start with $56M weekend

The seventh film in the M:I franchise had its second best opening domestically.

Lester Fabian Brathwaite is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly , where he covers breaking news, all things Real Housewives , and a rich cornucopia of popular culture. Formerly a senior editor at Out magazine, his work has appeared on NewNowNext , Queerty , Rolling Stone , and The New Yorker . He was also the first author signed to Phoebe Robinson's Tiny Reparations imprint. He met Oprah once.

Hollywood was quick to crown Tom Cruise savior of the box office with last year's billion-dollar blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick , but even saviors have off weekends.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One , the seventh film in the 27-year-old franchise, was expected to open with at least $60 million for potentially the biggest debut of any M:I film. Instead, M:I 7 had the second biggest debut among the franchise, $56.2 million over the weekend, as per Comscore, just short of 2018's Mission: Impossible — Fallout 's $61 million.

But all hope is not lost. For one, Dead Reckoning, Part One opened on Wednesday and scored $80 million over its first five days, outpacing Fallout and every other M:I film. And globally, the action-packed sequel opened with an impressive $235 million, the biggest opening of the franchise.

Also, Dead Reckoning, Part One is expected to have a long and solid run, based off strong reviews and audience reactions, which will likely lead to positive word of mouth that should extend its life at the box office.

In comparison, Harrison Ford 's final outing as Indiana Jones in The Dial of Destiny may be relegated to "bomb" status with its comparatively low scores from critics and audiences alike, as well as a harrowing $300 million budget. In its third week, the fifth film in the Indy franchise dropped to fourth place, grossing $12 million domestically, bringing its total here to $145.4 million. Globally, The Dial of Destiny is sitting at about $302.4 million.

The weekend's second highest grossing film, Sound of Freedom , likely benefited from some conspiracy-led controversy. Based on the true story of Tim Ballard (played by Passion of the Christ actor Jim Caviezel ), the fulm follows a former federal agent who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex trafficking in Colombia.

Sound of Freedom has been slammed as a "QAnon-tinged thriller " and gateway to "far-right conspiracy theories," among other criticisms, since its July 4 theatrical release. Several right-wing social media users have gone viral as of late by claiming AMC has sought to sabotage screenings by evacuating theaters, making the audio inaudible, or shutting off the air conditioning.

AMC Theaters and the film's distributor Angel Studios denied the conspiracy connections , but the film still managed to turn in 37% more in box office receipts from last weekend for $27 million domestically. Its domestic cume so far is $85.5 million.

Last week's No. 1 movie, Insidious: The Red Door , another franchise film, dropped to third in its second week of release, earning $13 million. The fifth installment of the Insidious series and star Patrick Wilson 's directorial debut has so far grossed $58.1 million domestically, $122.6 million globally.

Pixar's Elemental rounds out the top 5 at the weekend box office with $8.7 million, bringing its five-week cume to $125.3 million domestically, $311.7 million globally.

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Mission: Impossible 7 triumphs in early reviews: “This is Hollywood action filmmaking”.

A ction movie lovers are eagerly awaiting July 14 as if it were the day chosen for the premiere of Mission: Impossible - Part One, which many are calling Mission: Impossible 7 . A new iteration of a legendary franchise that will be told in two chapters in which, as expected, Tom Cruise will return to the skin - and the suit - of Ethan Hunt. A performance, by the way, that could have cost him his life during the filming .

As usual, some critics and journalists have already had the opportunity to see the movie in advance and the first reviews of the movie are already arriving, from which it seems that we can extract something very clear: it is a good action movie and Tom Cruise has done a fantastic job again. Below we leave you with the trailer and share with you what critics are saying after having enjoyed Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.

Tom Cruise’s best movies from best to worst

First Mission: Impossible 7 Reviews

Something that surprised us very much is what Nick Schager of The Daily Beast says, since he assures that while we are waiting for the second chapter, the first one is able to offer a convincing and satisfying ending. On the other hand, Screen Daily is full of praise: “Dead Reckoning Part One further cements this series as a consistently dazzling action franchise.

“May not be the best movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise. but this extravagantly entertaining,” comments IndieWire. Similar words from Deadline: “This is a serious, sharp-minded and top-tier action film; this is Hollywood action filmmaking at its peak.”

The truth is that although it is still early, the first reviews are very positive and everything points to the fact that we are facing a good installment of the series. Next July 12th we will be able to go to the theater to see it and we will know for sure.

Source | ScreenRant

Don't Forget: 'Mission: Impossible 8' Is Coming to the Biggest Possible Screen Next Spring

The Tom Cruise-led action franchise is getting an extended run in the premium IMAX format.

The Big Picture

IMAX gives three-week exclusive run for Mission: Impossible 8 which will no doubt boost box office performance.
Dead Reckoning Part One faced tough competition but still grossed $567.5 million worldwide.
Paramount's strategic move to give Mission: Impossible 8 a clear IMAX run and a new, more accessible title sets it up for success in 2025.

IMAX has announced that the highly anticipated Mission: Impossible 8 will have a three-week exclusive run in its premium format theaters next year. This announcement comes after the film, previously titled Dead Reckoning - Part Two , faced a significant delay of almost a year. The extended IMAX run is a strategic move to give the film a competitive edge, following the lessons learned from the release of its predecessor, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One .

Dead Reckoning Part One faced a tough battle at the box office last year. Its release came just a week before the unexpected "Barbenheimer" phenomenon , which saw Barbie and Oppenheimer dominate the box office, effectively sidelining Mission: Impossible . A significant blow was losing its premium format screens to Oppenheimer merely a week after its debut. Despite this setback, Dead Reckoning Part One managed to gross $567.5 million worldwide, a figure bolstered by a $71 million insurance payout due to COVID-19-related production delays.

Bruce Markoe , head of IMAX post-production, revealed that IMAX had initially approached Paramount before the release of Dead Reckoning Part One to suggest a date adjustment that would allow the film a clearer run on IMAX screens. The goal was to give the film a larger share of the premium format audience. However, Paramount chose not to take the advice , resulting in a crowded release window that hampered the film's box office potential. Learning from this experience, Paramount has now secured an uninterrupted three-week IMAX run for Mission: Impossible 8 , ensuring the film maximizes its exposure in premium theaters.

A Title Change for 'Mission: Impossible 8'

Another significant change is the film's title. While Dead Reckoning Part Two indicated a continuation, it may have contributed to the previous film's underperformance . Commentators suggest that the title might have deterred casual viewers, who were less inclined to invest in a lengthy film that ended on a cliffhanger. This mirrors issues faced by other franchises, like Marvel's initial approach with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame as Parts 1 and 2 , which they later rebranded to create distinct entities. The new title aims to attract a broader audience by presenting the film as a standalone experience.

James Gunn's 'Superman' Just Got an Extremely Large Release Update

With the exclusive IMAX run and a more accessible title, Mission: Impossible 8 is positioned to capitalize on the premium format's immersive experience, attracting both dedicated fans and new viewers. The series, known for its high-octane action and intricate plots, stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, alongside Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust and a stellar ensemble cast.

As Mission: Impossible 8 gears up for its 2025 release, the strategic adjustments in its rollout reflect lessons learned from past releases. The extended IMAX run promises a more favorable box office environment, while the title change is expected to broaden its appeal. Fans can look forward to another thrilling chapter in the Mission: Impossible saga, optimized for the best possible viewing experience. 2025 will also see Brad Pitt 's Formula One movie and Joker: Folie à Deux hit the screens on IMAX.

Stay tuned for more updates on Mission: Impossible 8 and its exclusive IMAX premiere.

Mission: Impossible 8

The 8th entry in the long running Mission Impossible franchise.

IMAGES

'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning
Mission: Impossible
New 'Mission: Impossible' film ratchets up the excitement (review
Trailer Mission: Impossible 7 (2021)
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
Mission: Impossible

COMMENTS

Mission: Impossible
The image most people associate with " Mission: Impossible " is probably Mr. Cruise stretching those legs and swinging those arms. He does that more than once here, but it seems like the momentum of that image was the artistic force behind this entire film. "Dead Reckoning Part One" prioritizes movement—trains, cars, Ethan's legs.
'Mission: Impossible
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt with Hayley Atwell as Grace, a new love interest, in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One." Credit... Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance
Mission: Impossible
In Theaters At Home TV Shows. In Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new ...
"Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One," Reviewed
The Extravagant Treats of "Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One". In the series' seventh film, Tom Cruise returns to perform stunts of outsized magnificence. By Anthony Lane. July ...
'Mission: Impossible
Critics Pick 'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One' Review: A Stunt-Loving Tom Cruise Takes On AI … and Big-Screen CG Rivals Combining breaking-news intrigue with ever-crazier ...
Review: Tom Cruise is out to save the movies. Is 'Mission: Impossible 7
'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One' Rating: PG-13, for intense sequences of violence and action, some language and suggestive material Running time: 2 hours, 43 minutes
Mission: Impossible
Seven films! Daniel Craig got sick of 007 after just five. But at 61, Cruise looks better than ever and pretty much wedded to the IMF. Other actors his age might be turning to offbeat character ...
Mission: Impossible
'Old-school': Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. Alamy. Elsewhere, the join-the-dots plot includes a James Bond-style mission to a lavish party ...
Mission: Impossible
The beginning of the end of the Mission: Impossible movie franchise appears to be another banger, according to the first reviews of the sequel.Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One again stars Tom Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, and the actor continues to put his life on the line in order to deliver the best cinematic experience possible. . Does this first part of the franchise ...
Mission: Impossible review: The new version makes it clear what these
Each time a new Mission: Impossible movie is released, it's accompanied with marketing material that mainly leans on explaining that yes, Tom Cruise did actually climb the Burj Khalifa ...
'Mission: Impossible
It says a lot about Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, the first chapter in the $3.5 billion franchise's two-part seventh installment, that detailed footage of one of the film's ...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One: Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. With Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.
Mission: Impossible 7 review: Tom Cruise does his own stunts to save
Cruise's save-the-movies spirit goes hand-in-hand with his self-styled reputation as the last of the great Hollywood stars. In this seventh Mission: Impossible movie, the now 61-year-old actor and ...
Review: Mission Impossible
The new 'Mission Impossible' movie is light on logic and heavy on Tom Cruise's stunts—but ostensibly greater movies have given us less.
Mission: Impossible
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch Tom Cruise drive a motorcycle off a cliff. The seventh movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise will hit theaters this July, and it looks as though it will continue Cruise's tradition of putting increasingly jaw-dropping, death defying stunts into each one of these action flicks. But, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One ...
Mission: Impossible
In that regard, the team behind this new "Mission: Impossible"—like the makers of all the installments that came before it—seem to know on a deep level why viewers flock to this group of ...
In 'Mission: Impossible
After his save-the-movie-business heroics with "Top Gun: Maverick," saving the world seems like a relatively simple task for Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One."
Mission: Impossible
The Mission: Impossible movies have always prioritized suspense, intrigue, and action ahead of telling stories that make all that much sense. But Dead Reckoning spends so much time trying (and ...
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Reviews: Critics Share Strong First
Critics took to social media to share their first reactions to Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 after the movie had its world premiere event. Screen Rant's Joe Deckelmeier called this his new favorite movie from the series, offering plenty of praise to franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell in the process: "'Mission Impossible: Dead ...
'Mission: Impossible' review: An homage to a relentlessly reliable
The Mission: Impossible franchise runs on its ability to meet expectations. Not just any expectations — high expectations. And through all seven films, it has remained remarkably stable at its core.
Mission: Impossible
Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/08/24 Full Review Caleb A Mission: Impossible's first installment to the big screen is a win, with a solid cast, unexpected twists, and a clever ...
Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One Movie Review
Parents need to know that Tom Cruise returns as Agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One, the first movie of the two-part seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise. In many ways, it's more family friendly than, say, your average James Bond movie: There's no drinking or smoking, women are more empowered than they are objectified or romanced, and language ...
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 review: Tom Cruise outdoes
Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One'. Christian Black/Paramount Pictures. The golden key is a solid movie McGuffin, with the ramifications of "the Entity" feeling ...
'Mission: Impossible
0:00. 1:10. "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" has yet to rocket into theaters, but the film is already shaping up to be a tour-de-force action flick as far as critics are concerned ...
Mission: Impossible
Paramount Pictures. The new action sequel Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is a hit with the critics. Set to premiere in theaters on July 12, the film's early reviews are coming in ...
Rotten Tomatoes Confirms That Mission: Impossible Is One Of The Best
The last three Mission: Impossible films, Rogue Nation (2015), Fallout (2018), and Dead Reckoning (2023), all rank in Rotten Tomatoes list of the top 300 movies ever made. They are the only films of the Mission: Impossible franchise to be included on this list, and one of the few trilogies out of the 300 elite movies.The highest on the list was Dead Reckoning, earning the 61st overall spot.
Mission: Impossible
The fifth installment of the Insidious series and star Patrick Wilson 's directorial debut has so far grossed $58.1 million domestically, $122.6 million globally. Pixar's Elemental rounds out the ...
Mission: Impossible 7 triumphs in early reviews: "This is ...
A ction movie lovers are eagerly awaiting July 14 as if it were the day chosen for the premiere of Mission: Impossible - Part One, which many are calling Mission: Impossible 7. A new iteration of ...
'Mission Impossible 8' Is Coming to the Biggest Possible ...
Paramount's strategic move to give Mission: Impossible 8 a clear IMAX run and a new, more accessible title sets it up for success in 2025. IMAX has announced that the highly anticipated Mission ...

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