“There are no rules until you write them.” are the words that writer/director Christopher McQuarrie lives by. His brother-in-arms, Tom Cruise, could die from the actions that spring forth from the rules that McQuarrie’s scripts perpetuate. This duo of physical presence and the written word has emboldened the contemporary arts with enthralling cinematic scripture in their most daring and timely Mission: Impossible yet. Dead Reckoning Part One - an exposition explosion on the edge of digital dystopia that is reflected in the misty nature of human instincts.
For a franchise that launched off the back of Brian De Palma and lurched forward with John Woo, the M:I franchise is one of the few that has continuously taken on distinct shapes with each passing entry. De Palma’s split diopters, Woo’s Hong Kong roots, J.J. Abrams’ televisual modes, Brad Bird’s thrilling charm, and now McQuarrie’s reflection through the framed spectacles that rest on the bridge of his nose is the summation of a franchise that invites unique perspectives within the boundaries of overarching uniformity. Like other franchises, it has clichés and tropes, but it has the added benefit of adapting to whoever is calling the shots. Not many franchises share that luxurious tax with Mission: Impossible, even if that revolving door of directors has closed under the management of McQuarrie.
Thankfully, unlike the demise of Sam Mendes’ empty James Bond entries and David Yates’ Harry Potter films jinxed by their spells, McQuarrie is incessant in evolving his craft in step with Cruise. These two, now an inseparable power couple after last year’s mega-hit, Top Gun: Maverick, is working to stay in conversation with the M:I sandbox by using their outside frustrations to influence their art. It’s not just the next gradual step in the overarching story but one that informs the audience of the threats that have invaded our habitual engagements with digital multimedia.
In Rogue Nation, McQuarrie developed Cruise into a self-sustaining vessel of unavoidable destiny before he began to interrogate the consequences of fated misfortunes in Fallout. A film that uses nuclear paranoia as a catalyst for the hard choices that Ethan has made since the beginning. “Should you choose to accept it..” is how Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) leers into Ethan’s insatiable desire to accept every mission that comes his way. A choice that effectively puts every meaningful person in his life in immediate danger. His ecosystem of friends which consists of returning players in Benji, Ilsa, and franchise staple, Luther, are viable extensions of Ethan’s attempts to reckon with the inevitable loss that comes with accepting the job. This dates back to the beginning of the franchise when Ethan discovers that his mentor, Jim Phelps (the protagonist of the original show and Ethan’s surrogate father), was behind the murders of their IMF team. The initial loss is so seismic in shaping the character of Ethan Hunt that the counterweight of romantic interest dissolves under the pressure of trying to prevent the inevitability of acting on choice.
How McQuarrie chooses to express this in the seventh entry of a franchise that was on shaky legs between 2006-2011 is transposing the analogs of film into the digital methods of distribution that have cursed film more than it has saved it. As one of the last franchises that hasn’t succumbed to the convenient haze of digital, the choice to become what McQuarrie and Cruise have publicly disavowed is one that informs the picture to its benefit. It blurs the line between artistic choice and personal distrust in a manner suited to amplify the urgency of a text that blueprints a future bound by the immediate implications of a rapidly evolving network that endangers the thrills cinema can enunciate. This isn’t to say digital film is a harbinger of doom but McQuarrie and Cruise understand that its services can favor a theatrical experience when it informs us of a reality that is on a mission to displace the characters from themself.
The response to this forthcoming threat is re-assembling the IMF squad and forcing them to face a sinister phantom that is everywhere and nowhere all at once. The suddenness of Ethan Hunt trapped within the iris of A.I. is too timely to not be ironic but it contextualizes the fear that film may be replaced by an all-knowing, faceless entity that overshadows the subconscious projection of our sentience. In a world dominated by this type of power, how do we separate the inception of ideas that lays the groundwork for filmmaking? We look our heroes in their eyes and note the glossy pool of dammed emotion that will eventually break free from that restraint at the film’s most physically exhausting moments. They are moments that stem from difficult choices, often sprouting from the impulses of instinct and desire. This is something that A.I. can’t replicate, no matter how much information it vampirically siphons from our past as a means to emulate the stories we tell.
For a franchise that has jousted motorcycles, fallen from the heights of the stratosphere, forced helicopters into tunnels, and raced around cobblestone pathways under the moonlight, Dead Reckoning continues to pace itself without wasting a breath. As much exposition as there is, it swings like a pendulum attached to the apex of these setpieces, exemplifying the motivation behind the threats of danger. Like the trains that inaugurated cinema’s earliest gateways, McQuarrie glides through the film with sequences that propels the audience forward as if the images were to break through the canvas of the screen. Beyond the picture, the sounds that emit from within each scene escalate the tension with a beady sweat that decorates every thrill with a collaborative symphony worthy of being sung with the most harmonic praises. If the G-Forces of Top Gun: Maverick melted your face, the steaming engines of locomotives and Tom Cruise’s well-postured sprint will practically suffocate you from how breathtaking each beat is.
This relationship between gargantuan action beats and the motivation behind them is filtered through the franchise’s most metatextual lens. In an era where the participation with the baggage that filmmakers bring to the silver screen can often feel uninformed, Dead Reckoning is an affirmation that the right people in the right roles can continue evolving their craft as it stays in conversation with the movies that got us here. The film isn’t trying to distance itself from the core concepts of the franchise, and for that, it is better in its attempts to recontextualize the past without losing focus on the inevitable road ahead. As a ‘Part One,’ it could have easily left us dangling at the end of incomplete threads, but it succeeds in achieving the mission without depriving us of the opportunity of being fulfilled. For McQuarrie to marry his inspirations with his own means of filtering that into an undertaking this massive is a signifier of someone who understands the provocative nature of cinematic thrills. He understands that cinema is instinctual, spontaneous, primal, and as much of an out-of-body experience as an intensely internal one. I’d say he feels like a one-of-a-kind in the current climate, but Tom Cruise feels that way too and we’re lucky they crossed paths when they did.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is a staggering exclamation point in a Summer season trapped in the banality of nostalgia-based blockbusters. As a medium that has pushed beyond the limitations of what a collective people thought possible at any period of time, Dead Reckoning stays true to that purpose. Over 100 years we’ve seen Buster Keaton wrangle runaway trains, Christopher Reeve fly as no man has before, movements inspired, political injustice challenged, and franchises shamelessly recycle the faces of their past with digital technology. This ever-present digital age has smoothed the grain out of images, blurred the morals and ethics of cinema’s past heroes, and descended into an algorithm-based funnel of artifice that wades downstream into a pool of anything but intelligence. Instead, it is shallow waters defined by streams of code and uniformity without the anchors of memory coursing through our blood vessels that illuminate the depths of our imagination.
McQuarrie’s mission is that he and Cruise act on their boyish impulses of cinematic desire when there is a very real chance that technology is on the brink of ushering them out of that opportunity. Technology is useful, it can be, but even in Mission: Impossible it can often be unreliable. Leading to inconveniences that force Ethan Hunt and his team to instinctively come face to face with danger at a level that interferes with their mortality. In this regard, Dead Reckoning may be the most sci-fi of the bunch. In trying to evade the penumbra of A.I., the shackles of perpetual fate tie their nucleus to an endless shaft and McQuarrie has the opportunity to explore the juxtaposition of predetermined outcomes and the determination in the wake of difficult choices. He does so tremendously, and Cruise becoming the conduit to unlocking the truth of major motion pictures is someone that believes he is the key to whatever gateway cinema will move through next.
As for what that gateway will lead to... well… we’ll just have to wait and see.