In ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,’ Tom Cruise Is Summer’s Superstar Savior

Here, in the seventh iteration of the Mission: Impossible franchise that began 27 years ago, Cruise once again plays frequently rogue adrenaline junkie Ethan Hunt. The top-secret agent’s in the doghouse again at the Impossible Mission Force (IMF, but not the global banking organization). But can Hunt resist one more unthinkable mission that pits him against his old rival Gabriel (a suave Esai Morales, 60), a dark angel who long ago slayed one of a series of Hunt’s true loves before his very eyes? Not bloody likely. Raise those stakes!

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The movie’s premise is that — bear with me — there is an Entity, a form of artificial intelligence, empowered to change the way humanity processes reality. That digital parasite has become (oh, no!) sentient. The adventure’s chief antagonist is an electronic boogeyman, a manifestation of our current AI fearmongering.

(Left to right) Esai Morales and Pom Klementieff

Paramount Pictures

Gabriel acts as the Entity’s human representative — and to up the stakes, there’s also a bejeweled key split into two halves that resembles a medieval cross pendant. Whoever can unite both pieces will control the Entity’s on-off switch, a mission that will leak into the next episode of this two-parter.

This plot is a long clothesline on which to hang massive action sequences and spin around the globe from Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam. Cruise crushes it on a horse named Zeus, rising out of the desert to rescue colleague Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who just so happens to have half of the mysterious key and a legion of bounty hunters trying to return her to dust. Was that a romantic spark flying only to be doused by the rising desert sands?

From there, we have a Rube Goldberg-like chain reaction that has Hunt jumping from a plane executing a HALO, a high-altitude, low-opening, death-defying leap (kids, don’t try this at home). He and Grace (Hayley Atwell, who portrays Peggy Carter in the Marvel Universe), the stunning pickpocket he’s pulled into the caper, go on a breathless chase through Rome manacled to each other in a tiny yellow Fiat. (The pair’s burgeoning romance is uncharacteristically chaste for a Hollywood movie, their time together perpetually dangerous, without even a Bond-level detour to the bedroom for a little R&R.)

After Hunt goes mano-a-mano with a knife-wielding Gabriel atop the speeding Orient Express, tunnels nearly squashing them both, the movie’s biggest nail-biter arrives. Their runaway train heads for a bridge that explodes as it nears. One car, then another, drops into the abyss. Hunt, dragging Grace behind him, or pushing her ahead, leaps from train car to train car, desperately trying to survive while random objects, like a grand piano, fly past.

(Left to right) Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Tom Cruise

Christian Black/Paramount Pictures

For Hunt, the real love affair is with his trusty team, who’ll follow him into any impossible, improbable situation, and deliver most of the wisecracks. That includes a delightful returning crew of dedicated actors, including Ving Rhames, 64 (in his seventh M:I outing), and Simon Pegg, 53. The seductive and surprising Vanessa Kirby returns as the opportunistic arms dealer White Widow, while Guardians of the Galaxy star Pom Klementieff kicks butt as a villainess who belatedly experiences a change of heart.

Kudos to Cruise for knowing his audience and how to please it. He nails a nearly impossible mission: becoming the summer’s box office savior riding a sequel, again, while performing stunts that would terrify actors half his age, and possibly even send a shiver up a Navy SEAL’s spine. He may lack superpowers, but he owns superstardom.

Watch it: Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One in theaters