Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One raises the bar for action filmmaking

The Mission: Impossible franchise has always been daring and boundary-pushing but since Christopher McQuarrie was brought into the fold, first as a screenwriter and later as a director, the franchise has really found an identity. That identity goes far beyond just being a series of state-of-the-art action movies. The thrills from McQuarrie’s M:I movies don’t just come from the stunts, which are utterly spectacular, or the shocking, mask-peeling plot twists. You’re not just getting the junk food here, you’re getting a complete, balanced meal.

Dead Reckoning Part One serves up a prime example of well-rounded action filmmaking about a third of the way through the film, when our characters are thrust into one of the most elaborate and well-executed car chases I’ve ever seen. From a technical standpoint, the sequence is loaded with original and creative gags. We’re not just cutting from our heroes’ car to the car that’s chasing them. Some of the things that happen in this car chase are terrifying, and some of them are hilarious.

This car chase lasts a really long time, and that’s because it’s doing a lot of work for the story. As the car chase continues, we learn about Hayley Atwell’s character Grace, what she’s good at, what she’s not good at, how she interacts with Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and how she handles stress. We learn a little about the character chasing them, the mysterious Paris played by Guardians of the Galaxy star Pom Klementieff. We don’t learn a ton about Paris but we learn enough to be genuinely terrified of her for the remainder of the film.

This character-driven type of action becomes particularly important as the movie goes on since this installment of Mission: Impossible is particularly loaded with characters we’re going to need to remember for a while (this is the first of a two-part story). Standing out among those new faces in addition to Atwell and Klementieff are Shea Wigham, who plays a grumpy intelligence agent chasing after Ethan, as well Esai Morales, who plays a sort of surrogate figure for a very unconventional villain.

This movie can’t work without an incredibly likable cast, which it has, but it’s the way that cast and McQuarrie deliver on the action that makes this arguably the best action movie of the decade to date. Tom Cruise’s much-publicized stunt involving riding a motorcycle off a mountain is as good as you’re expecting but it’s no more or less spectacular than the aforementioned car chase through Rome or the film’s final action set piece, which I won’t spoil for you other than to say it continues to top itself each second that ticks by.

Dead Reckoning Part One will get some criticism for having too much going on, or too labyrinthine or complex plot for an action movie, and those are perhaps fair descriptions that miss the point of the Mission: Impossible franchise. The complexity is always there but you’re also free to not follow it and still enjoy the movie, knowing that Ethan Hunt is doing the math in his head and is willing to do whatever is necessary to save the day.