Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, July 7th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: what’s new in theaters.

On the Fourth of July, the faith-inflected Angel studios rolled out a film that earned an impressive $14 million. The movie is called Sound of Freedom, and it’s based on the true story of a man who’s devoted his life to rescuing children from trafficking. 

But the big blockbusters? So far, they’re flopping. Most have underperformed at the box office.

BROWN: Tom Cruise is hoping for a repeat of last year when he blew up the box office with Top Gun: Maverick.

He’s got a new installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Dead Reckoning Part One comes out Wednesday, and WORLD arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino will tell us what to expect.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to save America’s flagging box office. When everyone else is betting on streaming, who’d be crazy enough to take on that mission? Tom Cruise, of course. He’s been one of Hollywood’s most vocal proponents of seeing films in theaters. And with his ambitious Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, he provides some over-the-top spectacle that helps make his case.

Cruise returns as super spy Ethan Hunt of the IMF, America’s covert operatives of last resort. Ethan’s latest impossible mission involves tracking down a key that every government on the planet is trying to get to first. Whoever holds this key possesses the ability to control a rogue artificial intelligence that’s manipulating the world’s information systems. 

KITTRIDGE: This is our chance to control the truth. The concepts of right and wrong for everyone for centuries to come.

Ethan and his long-term teammates Benji and Luther, played by Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, are once again helped by his sort-of girlfriend and former MI6 operative Ilsa Faust, played by Rebecca Ferguson. A shadowy villain from Ethan’s past, played by Esai Morales, also hopes to secure the key for his own hidden agenda. And Hayley Atwell plays Grace, a talented thief who wants to sell the key to the highest bidder.

The filming on Dead Reckoning started more than two years before ChatGPT accelerated the debate over the ethics of AI, but the movie mirrors current fears about our changing relationship with technology. 

GABRIEL: His fate is written. Shall we write yours, too?

The film asks whether we can preserve truth in a digital age. Can information be trusted when algorithms easily manipulate the ones and zeros? 

In one scene, hundreds of intelligence agents furiously type on manual typewriters, trying to preserve digital records before the rogue AI rewrites the past. 

ALANNA: The world is changing. Truth is vanishing. War is coming.

Everyone wants to control this powerful AI, but the AI doesn’t want to be controlled. It actually demonstrates how easily it can control humans. The algorithm deftly bends the will of human beings usually without their realizing it. Some people actually devote themselves to the system with a cult-like fervor. 

GABRIEL: It knows your story and how it ends.

Mission: Impossible warns us that technology is a false god.

While the film contains its social critique, it also acts as a meta commentary on Hollywood’s addiction to computer-generated imagery. Like Cruise’s other movies,  Dead Reckoning relies primarily on practical effects, with Cruise and the other actors performing their own stunts. And despite being rooted in reality, Dead Reckoning offers bigger and better spectacle than most recent superhero films, with top-notch fights, chases, and sheer daredevilry.

HUNT: Your life will always matter more to me than my own.

Cruise says avoiding CGI allows his films to tell better stories because the actors exercise their craft within physical space rather than in front of a green screen. There’s a visceral quality to these action sequences that’s reflected in Cruise’s face. Speaking of Cruise’s face, he’s looking impossibly young. I’m guessing his scruples don’t keep him from using AI-assisted CGI to help smooth the crow’s feet.

LUTHER: Ethan, what’s your objective. What’s your ultimate objective?

The film is rated PG-13 for action, violence, a little language, and some suggestive dancing in the background of one scene.

Mission: Impossible is probably my favorite franchise, and I’ll rank this film right in the middle of the seven films to date. It’s not quite as good ast four, five, and six, but it’s better than one, two and three. 

In a movie full of the impossible, the premise still lacks believability. I never bought the explanation for why they need a physical key to control a world-wide rogue AI. The heist element that’s usually so prominent is also a little lacking.

This movie is so ambitious that it gets a little bloated. The cast includes more than a dozen characters, including Cary Elwes as a U.S. government official, Pom Klementieff as a crazed assassin, and Henry Czerny returning as Eugene Kittridge from the first film. Despite its hefty 2-hours-and-43-minute runtime, many characters get short shrift, disappearing to make room for others. 

KITTRIDGE: Ethan, this mission of yours is going to cost you dearly.

Don’t expect to hear Ethan shout, “Mission accomplished!” in this one. Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One is such a big movie that, as the name implies, the story is split into two halves, with Part Two due in 2024. I was thankful though that Part One ends with some semblance of resolution while setting up the next installment. 

For fans of old school action movies and practical effects, Mission: Impossible 7 is definitely worth seeing, and worth seeing on a big screen.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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