Day of Reckoning

Now we've seen Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023). I guess I need to go back and check out the podcasts that I've been avoiding for spoilers.

It starts on a Russian sub, under the ice, with some new tech that makes it undetectable. It can only be operated with a two-part key with a cruciform cross section. You'll hear "cruciform key" a lot. Unfortunately, the tech, later known as "the Entity", goes rogue and makes the subs torpedoes turn around and destroy it. we last see one part of the key hanging around he neck of a drowned Russian seaman. 

So Tome Cruise is sent into the desert to pick up part of the key from Rebecca Ferguson, playing Ilsa Frost. The Elder of the High Table is not involved, sorry. They are attacked, etc, they get out. We cut to a US superspy top-level meeting, including Cary Elwes as top bigwig. A perfectly normal guy stands near the back while they run down the premise. The Entity is an all-seeing, all-controlling AI. If you can control it with the cruciform key, you could... dare we say it? Rule the world!

Of course, normal guy is Tom Cruise in a mask. He bombs the place with sleep gas and has a private convo with his boss. It ends up with him going after the key. He gathers his team (Ving Raimes and Simon Pegg) and hit up the Abu Dhabi airport, where someone has one part of the key. 

But it turns out that freelance pickpocket Hayley Atwell has nabbed the key. Also, Shae Wigham and his team from the IMF show up to take down rogue agent Cruise. Pretty soon Cruise and team realize that the Ent is manipulating surveillance, sending everyone running in circles. It is also hiding one man, Esai Morales. He shows up on no ones cameras, and Cruise can barely spot him in real life.

Anyway, Atwell loses Cruise and takes off to Rome without him. She gets arrested on arrival, but Cruise shows up to get her out. This leads to a silly car chase where they are stuck in a Fiat 500 that Atwell has to drive, and it's reminds me of Knight and Day (which I thought I'd blogged, but can't find), with a lot of spluttering from Cruise and shrieks from Atwell. It also reminded me of Fast X (driving down the Spanish Steps) and that other Mission:Impossible where they went to Rome. Anyway, they are being chased by a cool assassin, Pom Klementieff, in a police behemoth. 

They get out (of course) and head to Venice, where someone is going to buy the half-key from Atwell, now working with Cruise. The buy will be held at a high-class party, run by arms dealer Vanessa Kirby, who seems to be fronting for Morales, who is fronting for the Ent. Also, Ferguson is there. This became my favorite scene. There's a moment when they are all together, and Morales reminds them that the Ent sees all, knows all. It can predict their every move, every thought. And either Ferguson or Atwell will die that night, and Morales will get the key. 

This is when the drugs hit. The camera starts circling, the lightshow represents the Entity on the screens and Cruise starts trying to figure things out. He tries to tell people that the Entity must be afraid, or it wouldn't have set up the meeting, He tries to covince Kirby that the Entity is bluffing. He knows he's being psyched out at every turn.

And that's what I like about this movie - the philosophical problem of how you outwit a being who can model your every thought. manipulate all information, force you to carry out its plans unknowingly. Of course, Cruise does this by punching people, but also by turning enemies into allies. In the final set piece, where Cruise famously rides a motorcycle off a mountain and parachutes onto the Orient Express (!), a bridge blows up (like in The General!). And Klementieff saves his life, because the Ent predicted she would betray him. 

Like in Across the Multiverse, and some other epics, this movie ends with a cliffhanger (not literal) with Cruise going off alone to find the Ent. Which is too bad, because I loved all the supporting cast - including a lot of women. Both Atwell and Klementieff get out of Marvel jail and get great roles. I also loved Shea Wigham. who we previously knew as the Atwell's FBI boss in Agent Carter. He's definitely a "that guy" that we now know by name. Morales gets a good villain role, who mentored Cruise before he went straight and joined the IMF. He survives the movie, so we'll see him soon, whenever the next (last?) M:I comes out.

I should not that Ms. Spenser wasn't as keen on this as I was. But she didn't hate it as much as some of the dreck I show her, so could be worse.