REVIEW:
A lousy title, not enough action, a confusing plot, and a vague villain, it’s a wonder that this movie is not absolutely awful. It is certainly one of the weakest of the Mission Impossible movies, maybe even the weakest of all (the argument for that title would be either this entry or the second film, directed by John Woo.)
The problems start with this being the most confusing of the Mission Impossible films, and the one with the fewest answered questions. It’s one thing to be smart and make the audience have to think. It’s another to not really give us the answers, even by the end of the film.
The opening of the movie deals with a submarine that is state of the art when it comes to stealth technology. And now, suddenly, and inexplicably, it has been detected and is being fired upon. The submarine ends up going down, after learning the enemy ship was never really there, as the submarine accidentally fires on itself. The point of all of this is to show that there is a villainous Artificial Intelligence (AI) that has taken over their system, and that there is some kind of key (actually two interlocking keys which can only be used when joined together,) which are super powerful and dangerous in the hands of whoever controls them.
The two keys become the major Mcguffin or object being chased and pursued throughout the film. And yet we never get a clear answer as to what they unlock. That’s what I meant earlier when talking about the many unanswered questions. All we hear is that maybe the keys unlock the box with controls to the AI. These controls are the only thing that can destroy the AI, and that’s the reason why the AI is after it. That idea is mentioned as a possibility, but never answered or confirmed.
And speaking of the AI villain, that is probably the single biggest problem with this movie. A villain with no face. With no body. Not even a computer screen or a voice. We only know about it, because everyone keeps talking about it. But having a faceless villain, , with no actual physical presence, is a pretty dopey move.
Another dopey idea is in the title alone. Calling this movie Dead Reckoning Part 1, tells us before the movie even begins that the story will not have an ending. I have no problem with a continuing story, or with one movie leading to the next, but there’s no reason to make it as obvious as this, basically flaunting it, being so pompous as to assume the audience will be in for two movies regardless of whether the first one is even good, and then daring the audience to not come. What a bone-headed move.
And then there are the action scenes and stunts. Some are better than others. Regarding timing of this movie’s release, there’s a lot working against this one. You see, some of the major set pieces and action scenes and locations were already used in similar ways by other movies, just this year alone. The Rome car chase is great, except for the fact that we just had a Rome car chase two months ago in Fast X (both movies even feature the cars speeding down the Spanish Steps.) The dance club night time sequence feels very similar to a setting used in the last John Wick movie (John Wick 4, from earlier this year,) only in the Wick scene there was actual fighting and action at the club. Here in Mission, there is a standoff with pointed guns in the scene, but next to no action at all.
The train sequence at the end is fun, and helps make up for the many missed opportunities that were in the movie up until this point. Especially the train cars collapsing off the side of a cliff moment at the end that feels like something out of Chaplin’s The Gold Rush. It’s definitely the coolest sequence in the entire movie. But by that point, so much has been working against this film, that it’s hard to make it all back. The movie is long (over two hours,) and has a boat load of problems. Still it does have some interesting ideas from time to time, and is an okay entry into the series. But this is a series that is almost always good. Okay doesn’t cut it. In fact, it leads to this probably being the worst of all Mission Impossible films (yes, even the John Woo second film was better, since it had cool action.)
There is an inevitable sequel to this film being made… a supposedly last Mission film, titled Mission Impossible; The Final Reckoning (so there is no Dead Reckoning part 2, and this movie could have just been called Dead Reckoning instead of Dead Reckoning Par 1.) It’s the smallest of this movies problems, but even getting the title wrong, and making it lousy for no reason at all, shows you how much they botched this one. The biggest issue, of course, is the villain, or lack of one. To think that the best movie in the series, MI3, featured Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, and how we’ve gone to the exact opposite place on the spectrum now, from an amazing villain to no villain at all. What a mess.