I come to have some admiration on Tom Cruise and his recent outputs in the Mission Impossible series. I often wondered whether the recent installments of the series were more or less driven by a sort of middle-life crisis or whatever makes him tick these days, but I also admired a lot how much he was committed inside and outside the screen. Yes, he was really on the top of the Burj Mohammed bin Rashid building in Abu Dhabi as shown in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (2011). Yes, he indeed held himself onto a flying airplane as shown in “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” (2015). Yes, he certainly jumped from the sky in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” (2018), and then he actually put himself in a real fighter plane in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022).

In case of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”, it seems that Cruise is still itching for giving us more authentic cinematic thrill and entertainment in addition to topping whatever has been achieved during the last several installments of the series, and I am happy to report that his another attempt is fairly successful again. While its mixing formula for story, character, and action is pretty familiar to the core, the movie keeps us engaged in terms of story and character as diligently providing top-notch action sequences, and it also provides extra intrigue and seriousness without jeopardizing its non-stop narrative flow at all.

I often noted on how the villains of the Mission Impossible movies are so simple that they can be established within a minute, but the main villain of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is quite an abstract one to my little amusement. As shown from the opening scene, a very sophisticated artificial intelligence program has gone out of control, and this dangerous entity, which is just called “the Entity”, is ready to take over the world and the humanity, but it really needs a certain item which is very important for its total control and freedom.

During its early part, the movie quickly establishes how Cruise’s character, named Ethan Hunt, gets himself into the situation which may be much trickier than whatever he and his associates went through before. That certain item in question is divided into two pieces, and one of them happened to be acquired by an associate of his, and it looks like all he and his colleagues need to do is getting the second piece via using the first piece as a bait and tracking tool.

Of course, things do not go that well for Hunt and his colleagues because the item has been pursued by everyone else in their shady world of espionage. Not only NSA and CIA but also many other government intelligence agencies around the world are quite eager to get that item because whoever gets it in the end will have the absolute power over the Entity – and then the whole wide world. As he refused to hand over the first piece of that time to his agency, Hunt and his colleagues are actually being pursued by his agency, and there is also a mysterious figure working under the Entity, who later turns out to be associated with, surprise, Hunt’s old past.

I will not go into details more on how the movie bounces from one spot to another along with Hunt and several other main characters, but I can tell you instead that director/co-producer/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the screenplay along with Erik Jendresen, and his crew members including cinematographer Fraser Taggart and editor Eddie Hamilton, who got recently Oscar-nominated for his superb editing job in “Top Gun: Maverick”, constantly dazzle and electrify us with a series of superlative moments to be admired for their sheer intensity and verisimilitude. In case of one particular vehicle action sequence unfolded along the streets and alleys of Rome, it easily puts the similar one in “Fast X” (2023) to deep shame right from its very first few minutes, and you will be more amused as observing how it goes as far as that memorable vehicle action scene in “John Wick: Chapter 4” (2023).

Among this and other key action sequences in the film, Cruise steadily holds the center as bringing a bit more depth to his archetype character. While desperately trying to hold onto his unflappable moral belief as much as possible in front of the growing threats from the Entity, Hunt naturally has to make hard choices under impossible situations, and he also feels conflicted about putting his colleagues into more dangers, though all of them are determined to follow him to the end. The movie sometimes allows Hunt to have little moments of personal reflection, and we later get a small but poignant moment between him and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a rogue British agent willing to take lots of risks for Hunt as having been a bit more than a dependable colleague to him.

Cruise also lets many of the cast members of the film have each own moment around him. While Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg are dependable as usual, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Cary Elwes, and Shea Whigham are also solid in their respective supporting roles, and the special mention goes to Hayley Atwell, who seems to be enjoying every moment of hers as a wily small-time criminal who inadvertently gets herself involved with Hunt.

On the whole, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is basically a long warm-up part for the next one to be released in next June, but it is entertaining enough to justify its rather long running time (163 minute), and I assure you that you will gladly wait for the next film in the end. This is indubitably another highlight of this summer season, and Cruise, who incidentally had his 61st birthday a few days ago, successfully demonstrates again how productively he has been handling his middle-life crisis or whatsoever.