★★★★★

For a film four years in the making, Dead Reckoning doesn’t half land with peculiar resonance. This is the seventh in the Mission: Impossible film saga and first of a two-part extravaganza. It’s a blockbuster concerned with the perils of artificial intelligence, released in sync with the launch of Hollywood’s biggest strike in sixty years. A strike pitted against exactly that threat. Moreover, here is a feature driven, in part, by the hunt for a mysteriously missing submarine. This mere weeks after the Titan’s disappearance gripped the globe. It’s enough to make even Tom Cruise wrinkle an eyebrow, were he not behind a picket line somewhere, of course. And yet, for all this talk of contemporaneous thematic severity, where Dead Reckoning really proves itself in step with audiences of the here and now is in its recognising today’s want for escapist spectacle. That it delivers in spades.

While the M:I films, as spun from the Bruce Gellar television favourite, have never exactly taken themselves seriously, Dead Reckoning enjoys new peaks of high octane delirium. It is, at times, as though the old Looney Tunes are as much an influence as Bond here. Think Ethan Hunt (Cruise) meets the Road Runner. Such is not to suggest for a moment that the film lacks stakes and nail-biting action. Quite the contrary, Dead Reckoning often proves unbearably tense in its will to thrill. Rather, it is to note that the film is well complemented by a tongue firmly in cheek. For his third go at the M:I helm, Christopher McQuarrie rolls with the confidence of experience and dances well on the line of self-awareness that boarders parodic joy, without ever limiting the emotional sincerity of the whole.

Much as the Fast and Furious films parrot endlessly on the paramount importance of ‘family,’ comradeship reigns supreme here. Cruise has been defying the impossibility of missions for over a quarter of a century now and wears the part like a glove. As do Ving Rhames, a fellow OG teammate, and Simon Pegg, around since 2006. But when even newcomers feel indispensable to the cast, you know you have a sturdy ship. Here, Hayley Atwell makes for a sensational addition as the capable but out-of-her-depth pickpocket Grace, while Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby glitter as and whenever they glide into scene. It’s a tight knit and expanding company. Not one member is left behind in the dust.

Speaking of which, an artic launchpad soon gives way to desert planes in the protracted pre-titles sequence to open the film. Hunt has been tasked with retrieving one half of a cruciform key from “it’s complicated” ally Ilsa Faust (Ferguson). What follows is a very typical globetrotting yarn, all hinged on the McGuffin du jour, but the execution itself is exquisite. At breakneck pace, a horseback pursuit gives way to sandstorm shootouts, followed swiftly by a fabulously layered airport escapade, deliriously exciting car chase and nail biting runaway train finale.

In stretching his narrative across two parts, McQuarrie benefits from a dearth of pressure to conclude the story within three hours. As such, each high octane set piece is afforded the breathing space required for true multilayered spectacle to flourish. Never mind talk of upping the game from Fallout, Dead Reckoning is a film that outdoes itself from scene to merry scene.

Equally top tier is the directorial flair with which McQuarrie leads a camera well polished by cinematographer Fraser Taggart. The range is extraordinary. A haunting early shot of underwater peril propels the launch of political intrigue. This is all Dutch angles and close cuts. What’s remarkable is how well such a tone is melded with the film’s more comedic inclinations. The deliciously old school union of Hunt with Atwell’s Grace injects screwball energy into an already bantakerous script, later paying dividends when action in Rome veers heavily into caper territory. Car chases can so easily bore but this is never going to be the case in a sequence that handcuffs our heroes and demands they escape in a tiny yellow Fiat 500. The sight of Grace doughnuting the old banger at the foot at the Spanish steps, watched by Pom Klementieff’s utterly baffled French assassin, may well prove to be the funniest scene of 2023. It’s very Italian Job.

All this builds to a climax much heralded in pre-release publicity. Cruise does indeed freewheel a motorbike off an obscenely rocky cliff, parachuting into the valley below. What the promotion didn’t reveal, however, was just how breathtaking the aftermath would be. Never mind ‘of the year’, Dead Reckoning’s final set piece must surely rank among the most extraordinarily tense ever committed to film. It’ll be hard to find a more potent reminder of the power of big screen entertainment to thrill this Summer. Part Two really cannot come soon enough.

T.S.