01. Pretty topical! The scripts were finished in 2018, filming was scheduled to begin in 2020. Then came Covid. A lot has happened in these three years. Perhaps the enemy in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is no longer called “Artificial Intelligence” because today everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence as a possible enemy of mankind. Not a day without AI and news about AI. Sometimes we are annoyed by AI. But does that mean you have to call it “the entity”? The term “AI” is only mentioned twice. But a submarine containing an important item has sunk in a significant region: the Crimea.
02. This is actually a much better way to do it with the AI: Motorist Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) has to radio motorcyclist Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) with directions, but he can’t read and navigate at the same time. He therefore lets his car drive completely autonomously and moves into the passenger seat. Pegg is a comedic actor, his suspicious look at the empty driver’s seat is a small highlight of the film, better than some stunts. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to show the dependence of humans on computers, at least less than to sketch a nuclear threat from “the entity”,
03. “A key is the key, of all things”: A treasure chest key-like plug-in device that secures dominion over “the entity” finds the appropriate lock and wanders from thief’s bag to thief’s bag. That has something of “Indiana Jones”, but of course also a legitimately more necessary show value than having to look for notebooks with source codes.
04. Chubby Cheek. Tom Cruise may be in top shape at the age of 61 – in “M:I 7” he has certain marks on his face that many celebrities have on their faces from a certain age. Some scoff that he now looks like a soccer ball, or like a face painted on a balloon. The lower part of his face in particular looks a little baggy in this film, as if he didn’t properly adjust a Mission: Impossible mask under his chin. Cruise looked toned in last year’s Top Gun: Maverick. This was probably also due to the fact that the shooting of the flying adventure began two years before that of “Dead Reckoning”, i.e. from a different era than that of his visit to the basketball game:
05. Mourning violins. SPOILER!
When Tom Cruise desperately starts to sprint to tragically swelling strings to save a loved one – then he is usually too late. Here too. The soundtrack reveals too much, as does the motif of Agent Hunt running for nothing, which has already been used several times. Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie pointed to the need to be able to let important characters die – “Mission: Impossible 7” is more than an action film, it is an action drama. And Ethan Hunt shows himself to be human too. Contrary to the plan to keep his teammate’s killer alive, he must be prevented from killing him in revenge.
06. The opponent. Esai Morales will play Hunt’s antagonist, Gabriel. Morales doesn’t look like he’s good at hand-to-hand combat, so it’s surprising what’s inside this terrorist. Nicholas Hoult was slated for the role, the droll boy from About a Boy, the cute zombie from Warm Bodies! That would have been a coup. Unfortunately, Morales’ cast also shows what “Dead Reckoning” is missing: the male opponent on an equal footing. Someone who doesn’t care about tuxedos. August Walker (Henry Cavill) was the benchmark, closely followed by Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from the best movie in the series to date, Mission: Impossible 2. This second post is not dissimilar to Dead Reckoning. There is a human threat – a virus – but the focus is the fight of two highly competent agents for a woman, fueled by a pithy Robert Towne script. Apart from the fact that “Mission: Impossible II” is also a better title than the “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” with lots of words, punctuation marks and missing punctuation marks. Fortunately, the three best roles in “Mission: Impossible 7” have three women: Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell and Vanessa Kirby, who is outstanding in every role. In a single, very exciting (negotiation) scene, the three of them even come together. It’s too bad Ferguson doesn’t take part in the dialogue.
07. The stunts. Of course, the stunts! From part four and the climbing act on the Burj Khalifa, “Mission Impossible” 2011 appeared less as a film series and more as a laboriously concealed attempt to secure as many entries as possible in the “Guinness Book of Records”. Cruise’s jump off the mountain with the motorbike happened safely, unfortunate that the mountain still looks CGI (maybe “the entity” was playing a trick on him!). Train roof fights have also been very similar for many years and many films (crouching in the tunnel), and even if Cruise was really standing on a moving train, these real scenes seem much more static than those that were mixed with effects and studio recordings. Far more impressive to watch is the final train crash into the abyss that unfolds after a bridge blast: a cross between Jack and Rose on the plummeting Titanic and the cliff-hanging buses in Jurassic Park: The Lost World.