Tom Cruise pushes limits more than ever in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One… and it was worth the wait

meant an enforced break since 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

of the spy action franchise is worth the wait.

Dead Reckoning Part One is this summer’s best action blockbuster and possibly the best Mission yet – and, yes I do say that every time.   

It’s a testament to the lengths star/producer and his will go to push the limits of what’s physically possible in the name of entertaining audiences.

This time round the pleasingly familiar rollcall of dynamic double-crossing, improbable face masks, a ticking nuclear bomb, real chases through real cities (last time Paris, this time Rome) and extended opportunities to watch Tom Cruise running, really fast are book-ended by two breath-taking set pieces.

There’s the opening shoot-‘em-up in a swirling sandstorm in the Abu Dhabi desert. The audacious finale – a literal cliffhanger that’ll have you gasping in disbelief.

Whilst the death-defying bike/parachute leap the 60-year-old Cruise pulled off, for real, in Norway has been called ‘the biggest stunt in cinema history.’ Watch it on YouTube – it’s insane.

The plot, you say? This time Cruise’s rogue agent Ethan Hunt, aka ‘a mind-reading, shape-shifting agent of chaos’, accepts a mission to locate both parts of a gold key that will unlock a terrifyingly powerful something – though exactly what that is will have to wait til Part Two.

The script is over-fond of grandiose pronouncements like ‘The world is changing. Truth is vanishing’, but they have a timely sting of urgency in a scenario where the on-point baddie is a rogue form of Artificial Intelligence. Slight problem being that ‘The Entity’, as it’s called, is hard to picture and looks like Sauron’s eye from on a ‘disco’ filter.   

Not that you have much time to contemplate it. The sheer variety of set pieces is extraordinary and nail-biting – as my raggedy thumbnails can attest. But you get to care about the characters too.

Franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell smashes it as a dangerously smart and feline thief. Her chemistry with Cruise is magnetic, even though it’s oddly never allowed to stray beyond nuclear flirting and a quick hug. Whilst Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby and all that’s now so populous it dangles the suggestion not all of them may make it to Part Two (no spoilers).  

The star, of course, remains Cruise. Hollywood’s most committed showman. His thrillingly real punch up on top of a speeding train puts the one in Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny to shame.

Though unlike since he’s apparently ageing backwards.  

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One out in cinemas Monday July 10.