Review: Tom Cruise Fights the Bad Guys, Delivers in Latest ‘Mission: Impossible’

Respected film critic Roger Ebert shared this classic opinion during the original “Siskel & Ebert” review for Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade in 1989: “I don’t go to an Indiana Jones movie for humanity. I don’t go for convincing father-son relationships. I go for action and stunts.”

One action franchise that seems to have always embraced this line of thinking is Mission: Impossible. It’s ironic we received new additions to Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible this July, since both, along with Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne movies, were initially Hollywood’s answers to James Bond’s success.

While Indiana Jones continues to pack in more sentimentality in each new adventure, Mission Impossible now sets the standard for quality action sequences. There’s a reason its lead, Tom Cruise, is considered one of the biggest movie stars of all time. To him, the magic of filmmaking is in the choreography and special effects.

But we know he also has the acting talent to back up his love of stunts. And so do most of the actors he recruits for his beloved film series, including in their newest assignment of Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part 1. 

Here in Dead Reckoning Pt. 1, we channel the original movie that took a popular CBS TV show from 1966-1973 and made it a mega blockbuster: Brian de Palma’s Mission: Impossible (1996). De Palma isn’t back, but the over-the-top editing and direction reminds us of his style, which will either be effective or polarizing depending on the viewer. There’s even a flashback to young Ethan Hunt (Cruise) with shadows and silhouettes, rather than digital de-aging, which is nice.

Dead Reckoning, Pt. 1 is more of what we usually get with Ethan on the job: an evil mastermind (played by Esai Morales), a dangerous plan of world domination that will destroy everything, multiple femme fatales (Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby and Pom Klementieff) who kick butt, and Ethan’s buddy IMF agents played by Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg.

Though the visual direction of Mission: Impossible has always been the main draw, we do still get some character development over the course of Agent Hunt’s missions. For example, Michelle Monaghan occasionally appears as Ethan’s estranged wife. While the action might override the story in any Mission: Impossible, the characters at least sound smart and bright to make up for it, or as much as they can in such a ridiculously animated universe.

Cruise continues to shine as Ethan all these years later, and plays off the new and old supporting actors naturally. Atwell and Klementieff are solid additions, especially with their Marvel backgrounds, but Kirby is barely in the film. My biggest issue was that McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen’s script utilized a very outdated trope for Ferguson’s character, who is now rendered a cliché.

But at the end of the day, Mission: Impossible remains about good guys fighting bad guys, and Dead Reckoning, Part 1 delivers on that front the same way Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick did last year.