I Reckon

With Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have planted a seed for a number of other movie franchises: what if we made big two-part movie events? This is the year those seeds all seem to be producing fruit, and this weekend gave us the cumbersomely titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

This movie sees Ethan Hunt and his team in pursuit of as pure a MacGuffin as the franchise has ever seen -- a mysterious two-part key that unlocks something they don't even know about. As the two-hour, 43 minute unfolds, they find themselves up against a dangerous new enemy unlike any they've faced before. But don't expect a resolution here; this is part one, after all.

The Mission: Impossible film franchise wasn't solid out of the gate. Nearly everyone hates on the second installment, while I myself didn't much care for the first one either. But then the franchise found two pillars of a winning formula: building a cast of fun supporting characters, and featuring Tom Cruise in increasingly over the top stunts. Then, with the arrival of director writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, everyone pretty much agreed that these movies had reached their true potential.

For me, Dead Reckoning Part One was a little bit of backslide. For certain, there are still parts of the formula this movie delivers very well. The wild stunts are as entertaining as ever. The motorcycle cliff jump featured in the last year's worth of trailers totally delivers. No other franchise would make the choice to blow up a bridge and wreck an actual train rather than use CG. The series' signature "rip off the ultra-realistic disguise mask" moment keeps paying off (even though you've seen it like 47 times by now).

There's also a big win here in the additional of Hayley Atwell to the cast. Everyone who ever watched Agent Carter can immediately imagine how well Atwell would fit into a movie like this... and guess what? Your imagination does not mislead you here. (That said, it seems that this franchise can accept only one female co-star at a time; Rebecca Ferguson is quite sidelined here to make room for Atwell.)

This movie gives you everything you should realistically expect from it. And yet, I don't think it does so as successfully as recent Mission: Impossible films. I must say, I felt every minute of the long run time here -- and I found it especially uncomfortable that it felt so long when we were only getting half a story here. The plot is really quite straightforward, and yet the movie always seems to make choices to overly complicate it. It also doesn't deliver enough on the core premise here; keeping things as spoiler-free as possible, the conceit here should make for the most paranoid movie of the franchise, in which it's absolutely impossible to trust anything or anyone. Yet surprisingly few moments take full advantage of this inherent potential.

And it's not just the plotty dialogue that's too long-winded. Some of the action sequences overstay their welcome as well. A car chase early in the film completely resolves only to start again for very little reason. Then there's a big set piece near the end that aims to be "a particular sequence from Jurassic Park: The Lost World, times two!" Except that it decides to go "times five!!!!!" instead and actually starts to get boringly repetitive as a result.

I think all that sounds a little too down on the movie, as I read it back. I would say that overall, the movie entertains quite a lot. But also, the movie is... quite a lot. I think the two hour-ish cut would be tighter, more thrilling, and leave me ready for Part Two instead of feeling like "I could actually use the break right now." I give Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One a B-.