Review: Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One

The first four each had a different director and a different style, but since it settled down in the fourth film, subsequent instalments have been largely indistinguishable - was that one where Cruise hangs from the plane at the start or climbs up the Burj Khalifa?

I don’t think that anybody is going to forget which one Dead Reckoning is: it’s the one that wipes the floor with Indiana Jones.

TMission Impossible Dead Reckoning: The most giddily enjoyable action movie in years. (Image: Paramount Pictures)

This is the most giddily enjoyable action adventure in many years and often seems to be pointedly mocking the latest Indy film, Dial of Destiny, and rubbing its nose into its shortcomings.

Dead Reckoning concludes with a spectacular train sequence that makes the one that opens DoD look puny. That both sequences were filmed on the same section of track in the Peak District only adds to the ignominy.

The big new addition is, just like in Indy, a well-spoken, morally ambivalent English lady, who the hero has to win over to his cause. But whereas Phoebe Waller-Bridge is no more than alright in Indy 5, Hayley Atwell is sensational. As Grace, a self-assured jet-setting pickpocket who only slowly realises she's in over her head, she makes for a great double act with Cruise, bringing enormous humour to the film as well as emotional depth.

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. (Image: Paramount Pictures)

Of course, the main advantage over Indy is that almost everything in it looks like it actually happened. There's probably just as much CGI in this as in Dial of Destiny, but it works wonders getting viewers to think that Cruise and Atwell are really on that train, motorbike or car. And the action sequences are incredible; joyfully inventive and gleefully preposterous, but all done with such immaculate timing that it took me back to seeing Raiders for the first time.

The film’s tone pulls in opposite directions. It’s more lighthearted but more heartfelt, even earnest. Director McQuarrie’s breakthrough was writing The Usual Suspect and the big baddy here is genuinely chilling: a digital Keyser Soze, an all-powerful AI gone rogue that is everywhere and nowhere.

Controversially, this delays the opening credits and we don't hear the M:I theme tune until nearly half an hour into the film. Lalo Schifrin’s original from the TV series is surely the greatest theme music ever, a wild promise of limitless excitement that could never be delivered.

Until now; they have finally made a Mission Impossible film that is the equal of the Mission Impossible theme.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff and Esai Morales. In cinemas July 10. Certificate 12A. 163 mins. 

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