Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One review: Tom Cruise fights evil Chat GPT, brings insane fun back to the movies

In the summer of the ‘Barbenheimer’, Tom Cruise might just walk away with the biggest win of them all. His latest release, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, could very possibly be the best offering of the season with its insane action and a beating heart. Not only does this seventh film in the hit franchise perfectly fit the Hollywood blockbuster template but also improves on it, gilds it to almost undeniable perfection.

As they should have, Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie take the Fallout model and stick to it for Dead Reckoning. There are about four brilliant action pieces strung together, spaced out with some humorous relief, friendly bonding exercises between Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his merry men (and women), drone shots of European vistas, and some really fast running.

The AI villain

The plot, however, is not the film’s strongest aspect. The villain this time around is not a menacing Philip Seymour Hoffman under a mask or a fist-pumping Henry Cavill, but basically Chat GPT gone rogue. An evil AI, called the ‘Entity’ is taking over the world and all its intelligence agencies. All the superpowers are in a race against time to get their hands on it and harness its powers for world domination. The only one standing between them is Ethan with his golden heart and righteous resolve to ‘kill’ the AI before it lands with the wrong people. Of course, to give a more tangible face to the elusive ‘Entity’ and give Ethan reasons to chase trains on bikes, they bring in a talking techno Windows Media Player screensaver, golden keys that everyone is chasing after and a source code buried deep in the ocean that must be pierced through the heart with a stake…. or something like that. The Entity also hires freelancing thugs from Ethan’s past, one Gabriel (Esai Morales), to do its bidding and just casually annoy Ethan. However, as villainous as the Entity or Gabriel tried to be by fooling Ethan with fake voices, stabbing nice people or vandalising trains, neither could inspire any great reactions. The Entity is no HAL-9000.

But, as impossible as it may sound, the action sequences easily distract you from lacklustre villains. The hide and seek around Abu Dhabi airport is masterfully planned; the car chase around Rome is hilarious and exhilarating; that highly publicised, very real bike drop from a mountain leaves your heart in your throat; and that climactic Chaiyya Chaiyya on train roof makes you physically wince with nervousness.

Dead Reckoning bombards you with one thrilling sequence after the other and so, when moments of stillness arrive, you appreciate them too. After six movies of making sure to save his friends every time, Ethan finally gets a realisation that he may not always be able to do that. The moment is short and swift but Tom makes sure to deliver it gently and earnestly. “Your life will always matter more than my own,” he tells a friend and you believe it too.

Hayley Atwell shines

His perfect partner this time around is Hayley Atwell as pickpocket and genius thief Grace. She is easily the second lead of Dead Reckoning, shouldering multiple action scenes and even a couple emotional ones with Tom. It’s a very substantial, well performed role that also could get a little annoying with her constant need to subvert Ethan’s plans. But Hayley, as the fumbling but conniving Grace, is just as much a treat to watch as Tom himself.

As for Tom, he will do anything, jump off anything, crash into anything, for your viewing pleasure, to ensure you have the greatest time at the movies that you deserve. After last year’s brilliant Top Gun: Maverick, it won’t be a stretch to call him the true king of summer blockbusters. Hours after watching it on the bloated IMAX screen, images of him plunging off a mountain still stay embedded in the mind and the stomach. It surely adds significantly to the effect that it was all a real stunt, performed by 61-year-old Tom himself. Remember how we all cheered for Pathaan earlier this year and he went flying off CGI trains in a CGI landscape with his buddy Tiger? Suddenly, Tom and McQuarrie have reminded you just how silly it all looks in comparison. Bollywood and ‘Bollywood’s Tom Cruise’ still have miles to go. Until then, we wait for the OG Tom Cruise to come up with yet another string of impossible missions for next year’s Part Two.