Why it matters: With Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (and the 2025 follow-up, The Final Reckoning Part Two) Hollywood’s most famous actor-as-stuntman has once again summoned us to witness his death-defying acts of cinematic consecration, this time wrapping his messianic complex around the thoroughly modern demon of artificial intelligence.
The big picture: One cannot help but observe the exquisite irony of a $290 million technological spectacle warning us about the dangers of unchecked technological progress, rather like a televangelist denouncing materialism from aboard his private jet.
Between the lines: The film posits a rogue AI called “the Entity” – a name that manages to be simultaneously grandiose and vapid – as its principal antagonist, though one might argue the real villain is the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief.
The theological dimension:
- Cruise’s Ethan Hunt continues his Christ-like sacrifices for humanity
- The AI threat serves as a convenient digital Satan
- Supporting characters function as devoted apostles
- The franchise’s mythology has become its own sort of scripture
Reality check: While the film preaches digital temperance, it employs enough computing power in its production to run a modest nation-state.
The cultural significance:
- Represents Hollywood’s terminal inability to engage with technology beyond binary good/evil narratives
- Demonstrates American cinema’s endless appetite for messianic individualism
- Provides a masterclass in technical filmmaking while remaining intellectually malnourished
- Offers a peculiarly modern form of tent-revival entertainment
Notable performances:
- Cruise maintains his peculiar ability to appear both ageless and exhausting
- Hayley Atwell brings moral ambiguity with all the subtlety of a cathedral organ
- The returning cast maintains their roles as primarily technological confessors
The action spectacle:
- A Rome chase sequence that would make Italian preservationists reach for their smelling salts
- A train sequence that serves as a metaphor for the franchise itself: expensive, unstoppable, and ultimately derailing
- Stunts executed with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker having an anxiety attack
What they’re saying: One imagines the script meetings resembled nothing so much as a seminary debate conducted entirely in explosion sounds.
The bottom line: Dead Reckoning delivers its sermon with such technical virtuosity that one almost forgives its philosophical vacuity. Almost.
Go deeper:
- Director Christopher McQuarrie orchestrates proceedings with the solemn dedication of a high priest
- The film’s pacing suggests it was edited by someone suffering from an acute caffeine overdose
- The budget could have funded several small nations’ GDPs
- One suspects the insurance underwriters required psychological evaluation
