Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

There’s a pretty compelling case for the Mission Impossible series to be the most purely entertaining cinema spectacle of the lot.

Quietly but consistently these films have ratcheted up and shown every other action franchise out there how it’s done.

It’s also difficult to name a series of this length where the films have actually got better as they’ve gone along, no diminishing returns here just steady perfection of the formula.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, ostensibly the first part of a final hurrah, is another nerve-shredding, pulse-pounding masterpiece of action cinema.

Sadly, this doesn’t quite pip its immediate predecessors Fallout and Rogue Nation but still keeps that consistent high bar.

What does it do well? Make every hair on the body stand to attention as you’re thrown like a ragdoll through the action sequences, feeling every stunt. Once again, the ingenuity and imagination of the set pieces is unrivalled with a car chase through the streets of Rome and a daring train escape some of the best action scenes of recent times. Let alone THAT motorcycle cliff jump that Tom Cruise did for real.

Why doesn’t it quite match the last couple? It’s very long (nudging three hours) despite being a ‘part 1’ and, because of this, was always going to fill a little incomplete. Also, despite the AI villain being very ‘on brand’ for 2023, there’s not as compelling a figure to boo and hiss at like Henry Cavill in the last film and the twists don’t quite carry the same weight.

Small flaws though on another triumph and I’ll go to bat, against all the odds, for Mission Impossible to stand at the very top step of the podium in action cinema.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️