Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023)

As I walked out of the theater for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One (a movie title with far too much punctuation), a woman sitting in the hallway asked me, expectantly and warily, “Is it any good?” With a hasty sigh, I assured her, “It’s fantastic,” realizing only then that the movie had taken my breath away. “Lots of action?” she asked, and I promised, “You have no idea.”
 
I hope she enjoyed it – indeed, I almost stuck around to see if she had, because as much as I’ve hemmed and hawed with blockbuster movies lately, as much as I’ve been besieged by fatigue and corporate horse-trading, Dead Reckoning is the first theatrical release in a long time that felt like an absolute blast: ten out of ten, no notes.
 
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back, on the trail of two halves of a mysterious key that will unlock one of the world’s deadliest weapons. His newest mission reunites his old friends Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) with the disavowed MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) against the shadowy Gabriel (Esai Morales), his assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff), and pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), caught in the middle of a case that goes back to Ethan’s first days with the IMF.
 
Your mileage may vary on the first two Mission: Impossible films, but there’s no question that the series well and truly hit its stride with 2015’s Rogue Nation, the fifth in the franchise and the first pairing Tom Cruise with director Christopher McQuarrie. Dead Reckoning is McQuarrie’s third outing with the IMF, and if there’s a pocket he’s firmly in it. Since McQuarrie’s arrival, Mission: Impossible has been a racecar in the red, constantly accelerating and delivering consistent thrills that somehow, time and again, find a way to make a tense situation even more nail-biting. What’s not to love about an action film so confident that its first trailer consisted merely of a single stunt and the relentless insistence that, yes, Tom Cruise really drove a motorbike off a mountain? 
 
And even while we’ve seen that stunt over and over again, there is nevertheless a charm and an intensity in the film finally reaching that moment – and then overpowering it, again and again, in a climactic sequence that protracts the audience’s anxiety by making a certain situation unfathomably worse and worse. As a third act setpiece, it’s a definitional moment for the film, which packs all its character beats and espionage plots into one orchestral symphony of chaos aboard the Orient Express. Agatha Christie, eat your heart out; Poirot’s mere murder inquiry can’t hold a candle to the finale of Dead Reckoning. 
 
At two hours and forty-three minutes, Dead Reckoning has a runtime that would make any lesser action movie buckle. Even Dial of Destiny, which I more or less loved, felt a little baggy at two-thirty-four, yet Dead Reckoning clips along, even through preposterous scenes of outlandish didactic dialogue. Buoying even clunky exposition like “The only thing that’s real is this conversation,” what sells the film is the earnest investment we feel between these characters, the genuine care they have for each other. I rewatched the films about two years ago, and even so the chemistry between Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg did more heavy lifting for me than my memory of their friendship in the preceding films. If they’re being playful with each other, we know things will be fine, but the script deftly maneuvers into those moments where conversation becomes deadly serious, raising the ante to a painful degree.
 
Even in a franchise where anyone could be wearing a rubber mask, where death is often just a fake-out, the tension in this film is almost unbearable. The audience knows that Ethan Hunt – that Tom Cruise – is bulletproof, and yet I found myself wheezing with fear each time he flirted with sudden death. McQuarrie is a master magician in this sense, fully immersing the audience in the cinematic illusion of danger. In my review of Fallout, I had said that McQuarrie seemed constantly to be asking, “But what if it were on fire?” And that impulse to ratchet up the stakes persists into Dead Reckoning; there’s a car chase, yes, but the car has no doors, and its occupants are handcuffed in a way that makes driving a challenge – and, of course, there’s a baby carriage in their way. My audience was laughing and gasping in equal measure, a rapturous burst of applause just when things cleared up, only to reveal the light at the end of the tunnel to be, quite literally, an oncoming subway train.
 
That pesky Part One in the title gave me some degree of pause. I thought we’d cleared that hurdle back in the days of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, and yet we have films like Across the Spider-Verse and Dune taking a year’s hiatus without fully concluding their narratives. There’s so much more to come in Dead Reckoning, Part Two, and yet McQuarrie hasn’t given us half of a story. He’s given us a full film (and then some), albeit with a major door left open for the sequel. That’s not to say that I couldn’t have easily gone another three hours – I could have – but at least this time I don’t feel like my attendance at the next film is taken for granted. Rather, Part One more than earns the right to expect me to come back for more. 
 
Back when Fallout debuted, I called Mission: Impossible “the little franchise that could.” But after 27 years and seven outings, I think it’s safe to say that it’s the persistent and consistent franchise that shows everyone else how it’s done.
 

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, some language, and suggestive material.” Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen. Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, and Henry Czerny.

The Grand Marvel Rewatch: Marvel One-Shots

Face front, true believers! Welcome to the final astonishing addition to “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” designed to get us all sufficiently amped up for Captain America: Civil War, which comes out May 6, 2016. Each Wednesday, The Cinema King casts his eye back upon the twelve films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and offers five salient observations about the caliber of the films and the way they might play into Marvel’s latest installment in America’s favorite franchise.

Today’s fantastic feature film isn’t a feature film at all – we’ve got five “Marvel One-Shots,” short films released as special features on various Marvel DVDs. Where do these all fit in, and why haven’t we seen more than five? Read on for the answers!

1. The Consultant. If you’ve wondered how Tony Stark got to his postcredits cameo for The Incredible Hulk, The Consultant has your answer – he’s a patsy, sent by Phil Coulson and Jasper Sitwell to sabotage the World Council’s attempt to get Abomination on the Avengers. So much clicks into place here – Stark’s recruitment, apparently too early, of the Hulk is here recast, and we know the World Council has been infiltrated by Hydra, so it makes sense to see them pushing this shadowy agenda. Plus it’s a real treat to see Coulson and Sitwell working together (even though we know the latter is Hydra) in a very mundane fashion, sipping coffee at a diner while guarding the sanctity of the free world. 
2. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer. Okay, this might be my favorite One-Shot, set between Iron Man 2 and Thor (as the title indicates). We get to see Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) in action, playing with the effortless charm and unassuming physical dexterity required to rescue a gas station from an everyday holdup, even without the help of his firearm. It’s the intrusion of the super on the quotidian, a recurring theme in the MCU, and it’s shouldered by Gregg’s endearing portrayal of a man who’d rather contemplate donuts than deadbeats, but he’ll happily work on both if the occasion calls for it. Did this short demonstrate the potential for Coulson to lead Agents of SHIELD on ABC? It wouldn’t be the only One-Shot to spin-off into the television realm. 
3. Item 47. A worthy epilogue to The Avengers, Item 47 puts Jasper Sitwell on the tail of two civilians (Lizzy Caplan and Jesse Bradford) who’ve recommissioned an inert Chitauri weapon to aid them in a series of bank heists. It’s also the short that introduces us to Felix Blake (Titus Welliver), a recurring figure on Agents of SHIELD. But why we haven’t seen more of Marvel’s Bonnie & Clyde (here, Claire and Bennie – the initials can’t be an accident) is our loss. Depicted as entering SHIELD by the end of Item 47, Claire and Bennie’s fate remains to be revealed. Did they fall to Hydra, as Sitwell did? Or are they still among the angels? Heck, are they even still alive? 
4. Agent Carter. Though Thor’s Hammer is a personal favorite, Agent Carter is ostensibly the greatest One-Shot, not least because it led to a television show of the same name. We get to see Hayley Atwell strut her stuff as Peggy Carter, stick it to the patriarchy, and save the day while sidelining postwar sexism. No wonder they greenlit this for two full seasons! It’s infectiously fun, too, with a compelling narrative that sees Peggy pick up a case. Its microcosmic nature, which sees Peggy promoted to the head of SHIELD in twelve minutes, doesn’t quite jive with the canon of the series, but no one says she has to accept right away. Bonus points for the post-credits shot of Dum Dum Dugan (Neal McDonough) appreciating the innovative swimwear known as “the bikini.” 
5. All Hail the King. To those who, like me, were less than enthused about the decision to turn The Mandarin into a farting drug-addled Brit, you’re in luck – All Hail the King revisits Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) in prison to reveal that there’s a real Mandarin out there who’s none too pleased about the (mis)use of his moniker. Now, it’s unlikely that this’ll ever really be followed up on in great detail, but it does draw a bit more connective tissue between Tony Stark’s abductors from Iron Man and the true Mandarin. But it’s always a treat to see Sir Ben in his element, and a nod to Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) confirms that maybe, just maybe, Marvel isn’t done with those Stark nemeses.

Well, folks, that’s it. Another stellar series from the Monarch of Movies, your Cinema King. Captain America: Civil War opens on Friday, so be sure to see it before coming back here on Monday for the full review of Marvel’s latest superhero flick. As always, there won’t be spoilers in the initial review, but if you want to join the conversation you’ve gotta get a ticket! Subscribe above to make sure you don’t miss a single review, Top 10 list, or our next special series. Excelsior!

The Grand Marvel Rewatch: Captain America: The First Avenger

Face front, true believers! Welcome to the next astonishing addition to “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” designed to get us all sufficiently amped up for Captain America: Civil War, which comes out May 6, 2016. Each Wednesday, The Cinema King casts his eye back upon the twelve films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and offers five salient observations about the caliber of the films and the way they might play into Marvel’s latest installment in America’s favorite franchise.

Today’s fantastic feature film takes us to 2011 for Captain America: The First Avenger, for some good old-fashioned Nazi-punching.

1. One small step for a man... There’s a surprising sense of scope in this film that never lets us forget that Steve Rogers is just one man in a much larger war, a much bigger conflict that spans all the way back to Thor (note the shared appearance of Yggdrasil, the World-Tree) and much further forward (see #2). And can we just say – what a man! (No, I’m not referring to his pecs, at least not exclusively.) Chris Evans is spot-on as the old-fashioned Steve Rogers, and I love that the movie never laughs at him for his antiquated notions about the world. Instead, he embodies an ideal of heroism that of which our world and his could frankly do with a little bit more.
2. One giant leap for Marvel-kind. As small as the film’s focus tries to be, it downright explodes the Marvel Universe and perhaps might hold the record for most spin-off material. It introduces Hydra and the Tesseract, who persist in the MCU to this day; it gave us Howard Stark and Peggy Carter, who’ve had their own show; and it brings us full-force into The Avengers. I’m almost prepared to say that Captain America: The First Avenger is the most important film thus far in the MCU, insofar as it’s introduced a lot of important elements that haven’t left the franchise.
3. Raiders of the lost tesseract. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is at its best when it’s mashing up genres with the superhero genre like Guardians as a space opera or Winter Soldier as a 70s conspiracy thriller. But The First Avenger does that twice over: it’s a superhero film, which is also a WW2 film, which is also an elaborate Indiana Jones reference. In fact, it’s somewhere between Raiders of the Lost Ark and director Joe Johnston’s second film, The Rocketeer (which you know I love). High adventure mixed with war exploits, it adds up to popcorn cinema, as in the best it is.
4. Such a waste, such a terrible waste! The First Avenger is really entertaining cinema, but it’s a real shame that it’s a world that we can never really revisit. With Cap (spoilers?) frozen at the film’s end and thawed out in the present day, we’ve pretty much resolved Cap’s arc with Peggy and the Howling Commandoes. While most of the supporting cast has surfaced over on Agent Carter, we’ve gotten a little bit of continuity on the WW2 era of the MCU, but Hayley Atwell is such a marvelous performer (no pun intended) that she deserves more big-screen heroics. Ditto for Stanley Tucci, who’s absolutely perfect as Dr. Erskine, but he’s shuffled off fairly quickly, meaning we don’t get to see more of this great screen presence. And don’t get me started on Tommy Lee Jones, who a) I always forget is in this movie, and b) gets the best line of the film with “I’m not kissing you!”
5. Many happy returns. There’s a beat in Thor where Loki lies about Odin being dead, but The First Avenger amps that up by three when it kickstarts the MCU’s refusal to kill most characters permanently. You have Bucky Barnes, who’ll turn out not to be dead; Arnim Zola, who’ll turn out not to be dead; and of course Captain America, who turns out not to be dead. It’s an old comic book cliché, of course, so might we wonder whether we’ll see the Red Skull at some point in the future? Hugo Weaving is not shy about his reticence to return to the role, but if ever a character could be recast it’s this one. Call it “the War Machine precedent” (in being replaced, would we say Weaving got Terrenced? or Cheadled?). In fact, his apparent demise at the hands of the Tesseract, a known Infinity Stone, makes an Infinity War return all the more plausible.

There’s so much more to be said about Captain America: The First Avenger, so be sure to check out my original review. Join me in the Grand Marvel Rewatch over the coming weeks, and hit the comments to share your thoughts about the MCU. And don’t forget to tune in next Wednesday for the next installment, in which we take a closer look at the big one, 2012’s The Avengers. Excelsior!

Top 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Films: #8-6

With Guardians of the Galaxy, the Marvel Cinematic Universe enters the double-digits club.  The job of a Top 10 list in this case is especially difficult because I knew precisely which would be #1 and which would be #10, but the rest I don’t have much complaint about.  The Marvel brand has been very reliable, so assigning ranks becomes a somewhat arbitrary game of quibbling and comparing.  That said, I feel fairly confident in assessing “The Top 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Films!”

8.  Thor: The Dark World (2013)

“Thor: The Dark World is so full of top performers giving their all ... that it almost doesn’t matter that the story doesn’t break much ground.” 

The difference between Iron Man 2 and this sequel to Thor?  Tonal consistency.  As insubstantial as some critics said Thor: The Dark World was, it never felt like parts were grafted on.  Instead of attempt to pull closer to the larger franchise, this sequel takes the Norse god of thunder in his own thematic direction, closer to the action-comedy genre like Indiana Jones or Pirates of the Caribbean.  Fresh off The Avengers, Tom Hiddleston is still killing it as Loki, and his upgrade from pure villain to compelling antihero with mysterious motives is compelling enough to be its own movie.  It’s a good thing, because the primary antagonist is a little undercooked, and Thor’s own character arc leaves something to be desired.  What the film does have is a smashing score, an abundance of confidence, and a dexterity with fun action sequences that advance the plot without feeling like a narrative pause for a set-piece.

6 (tie).  Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

“I was always a fan of Joe Johnston’s other superhero flick, The Rocketeer, and Johnston channels his WWII nostalgia here, creating a perfectly retro atmosphere without feeling less than modern.” 

I will acknowledge the possibility of rose-tinted glasses in this case; as the quotation above attests, I grew up on The Rocketeer, and the idea of a version of that movie starring Captain America is positively dazzling to the child at heart.   This is such a feel-good movie, though, that it’s hard to imagine filmgoers not feeling those pangs of nostalgia that are so intrinsic to the character.  A man punching Nazis while literally clothed in the American flag will never get old, and Chris Evans shoulders the role of Steve Rogers perfectly, playing his patriotism in earnest.  The film is littered with great supporting players – Stanley Tucci, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell – in very memorable roles, but what keeps this film out of the Top Five is the same complaint I’ve had about a few of the Marvel Cinematic Universe entries:  a lack of a cohesive ending, largely because this film leads directly into The Avengers.

Come back Friday to see what tied for sixth place with Captain America as the controversial countdown continues apace!