Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One -- Review

Originally Reviewed on Letterboxd

3.5/5

The second film this summer that serves only as the first part of an overarching narrative, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One takes its time establishing its premise at the expense of an exhilarating pace. The emphasis on plot and character building is not inherently bad, but since I do not yet know how these threads will resolve themselves until the next installment, it is hard to decipher if all of that extra time was well spent.

Now, the antagonist and overarching premise created the possibility for drastic dynamic shifts with the characters and the world at large. I would have preferred it if these changes were a lot more consequential and extreme than they ended up being, but what we got was still compelling enough and offers the potential for more of these changes in the sequel. The action is pretty entertaining, and the one major stunt here would have been more thrilling if I had not already seen it executed a handful of times in promotional material. Maybe my expectations for action set pieces in this series were set too high by Fallout, but I really wanted more practical stunts and thrilling fight scenes that pushed beyond even what its predecessor did. Do not get me wrong, the action we are presented with here is still entertaining; I just found myself wanting even more from this film than what I was given in its runtime. When I compare it to its predecessor or John Wick: Chapter 4, this film, unfortunately, falls a little short for me on the action side.

The new and returning characters in this film range in quality for me. Some old faces, like Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby), were just as excellent as ever while some new additions, like Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, stand out as brilliant additionals to this franchise. However, some characters did fail to click with me as much as others. Gabriel (Esai Morales) is played very well, but his backstory seems baffling and unnecessary. A returning character, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) also felt underutilized. These issues may very well be resolved in the sequel so it is hard to say at this moment exactly how successful (or unsuccessful) these plot threads and character arcs are.

By this point, it may seem like I did not enjoy my time with Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, but that could not be further from the truth. There are a lot of references and inspirations featured in this film. First and foremost, the parallels between this film and the original Mission: Impossible are overt. The tight close-ups and Dutch angles directly callback to De Palma’s style in the original, and the sleight of hand trick and train scenes feel like obvious callbacks to their first film counterparts. This is certainly no accident (as evidenced by Henry Czerny's return) and was a welcome addition, at least by me. Another connection I made was between this car chase in the yellow Fiat and a similar yellow car chase featured in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only. Maybe that one is a reach on my end, but I still enjoyed the possible connection between these two action franchises. My time with this film really was ultimately quite positive. The time it takes to methodically establish its plot and players offers the great possibility for a lot of exciting freedom in the sequel; however, this great foundation could just as easily be ruined by adding even more characters and plot threads in the next installment. Only time will tell if Dead Reckoning Part One is merely a mediocre addition to this franchise or the stepping stone for a cinematic conclusion of truly epic proportions.

P.S. My views on this film may change depending on how its sequel sticks the landing.