Thoughts on Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

There are few series that I love more than Mission Impossible. They’re an absolute anomaly when it comes to franchises. Almost all of them are directed by a different director with the only continuity being character names and actors. That is until Christopher McQuarrie took over director duties in Mission impossible - Rogue Nation, and made the best action trilogy I think I’ve ever seen. 

A lot has been said about Mission Impossible - Fallout, so I won’t stay here long but it’s important to know for me to say that there’s only about fifteen movies better than Fallout. If you haven’t seen it you should take a day to watch it. It’s a technical masterpiece that has a fairly deft understanding of alphabet companies and their complete and utter failure to keep any country safe. Knowing McQuarrie’s politics and how he views the modern defense state made Dead Reckoning shoot to the top of my list. 

Dead Reckoning’s take on AI is the crux of the whole movie, so I’m very thankful that it’s an insightful one. This all powerful machine doesn’t have a human naming convention or anything anthropomorphic about it. It’s viewed as a cosmic entity that only hungers for malevolence. The times you see The Entity (as called in the movie) it’s nothing more than a void that sucks in various rays of light. It’s viewed as nothing but an insidious vacuum of everything we’ve created. 

McQuarrie isn’t just talking about an AI revolution here. 

He’s insisting that all pieces of military technological revolution are an endless vacuum that only takes from what came before it. It carves a path of deceit and retroactive destruction. 

Often the thing talked most about in this series is the big stunt. It was the HALO jump in Fallout and in Dead Reckoning it’s the motorcycle jump. It’s all over the promotional material for the film so you’re going to be waiting for it nearly the whole movie. There is a palpable excitement when we do finally see Cruise in his wingsuit and bombing the dirtbike over stone cottage walls. The moment of the bike leaping off the mountain and then Cruise leaping off the bike is absolutely electric. 

There’s no other way to put it, it’s simply some of the best cinema has to offer. 

It’s an effortless blend of all the cinematic qualities of a fine film. It’s cut masterfully from silence to a deafening roar. It’s acted impeccably by Cruise of course actually performing the stunt, and the scene is placed right after an emotional focal point of the film so your brain and heart are operating on the same highwire. That electric energy carries all the way to a wonderful retreading of The General that never overstays its welcome, and even though this is just the first part of a duology it comes to a fulfilling end. 

I have a lot of loose thoughts that I can’t quite fit in nicely to this, so I was thinking of something like a solo podcast where I just ramble for a little bit about this movie and maybe some of the others in the franchise. Let me know if that’s something that interests you, but even if it doesn’t I will probably end up doing it. 

This is my first post in a while. I've been very busy. I got married and am having a son! As always, thanks for reading.