Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Part One) (2023)

Part One? Is it really necessary to have a plot for an action adventure movie that cannot be resolved within one 180 minute movie> Apparently it is. Other than that this entirely met my expectations. One reviewer points out that Tom Cruise has been doing this series, which now numbers seven films, for 30 years. When he started, Bill Clinton was president. Once again, the ever determined IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agent Ethan Hunt is fighting against forces much greater than himself (including his own government) to keep the world from imploding. We get a mix of familiar characters—Ving Rhames’s computer hacker Luther Stickell, ever the voice of sturdy reason since the very first film; Simon Pegg’s technician and communications expert Benji Dunn, who has long since outgrown his initial role as comic relief into a reliable dramatic mainstay; and Rebecca Ferguson’s supposed deceased spy/potential love interest Ilsa Faust. There is the return of Vanessa Kirby’s nefarious arms dealer The White Widow and the introduction of a new villain, the brutal Gabriel (Esai Morales), who has a tragic link back to Ethan’s pre-IMF past. We also get a new character in Grace (Hayley Atwell), a professional thief who is Ethan’s antagonist, then his partner, then his antagonist again. All through out there are thrilling escape sequences that as always dazzle the viewer and there while there are many unexpected twists and turns in the action, the outcome is never in doubt.