Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a scene from "Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One." (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Skydance).
It was going so well. Summer 2023 had gotten off to an auspicious start at the multiplex, give or take a silly “Transformers” movie. To date, we've had a couple of enjoyable superhero movies (hello, Miles Morales and Barry Allen), a star-studded gem from a renowned auteur (“Asteroid City,” aka Wes Anderson's live-action Max Fleischer cartoon) and even a sweet, character-driven comedy inaccurately marketed as a sex farce (the Jennifer Lawrence vehicle “No Hard Feelings,” better than you'd expect).
But, almost like clockwork, along come a pair of plus-sized sequels to ruin the fun. One is being sold as the first half of a two-part espionage yarn, while the other is billed as a franchise capper that brings back a beloved icon from a simpler age of summer moviegoing, then adds a dollop of fan service. In both cases, creaky plotting, too many characters and poor creative decisions take these releases to the point of no return. At 163 and 154 minutes respectively, the key word is exhausting, something also reflected in their kilometric titles. Let's take a closer look. For old times' sake.
“Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One”: Look, it's Tom Cruise running as if his life depended on it! No, wait, now he's outracing baddies and the po-po down narrow streets and tourist-filled plazas. Hold that thought, he's infiltrating a government building where he's not supposed to be. What's that? He's playing cat-and-mouse footsie with Uncle Sam's best and brightest inside an international airport? Naw, get outta here, is he really getting frisky with a woman who has her own agenda?
Scratch that last part. No one is having sex in the “Mission: Impossible” movies anymore. Daredevil secret agent Ethan Hunt is no James Bond, after all, even though one senses part of him wishes he had 007's game.
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell and Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn in a scene from "Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One." (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Skydance).
Cruise's latest slice of intercontinental intrigue, his seventh as Hunt, will have you experiencing déjà vu all over again, not only because it trots out the oft-filmed scenarios described above, but because the star stopped doing the very thing that kept the “Mission: Impossible” franchise on its toes. Each of the first four films was helmed by a different director, with number four, the exhilarating “Ghost Protocol,” still standing tall as the strongest entry. But starting with 2015's “Rogue Nation” (reviewed in this very site by yours truly), Cruise has stuck with filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie (“The Way of the Gun”).
And the wear-and-tear on this creative partnership is really starting to show. “Dead Reckoning Part One” is the pair's third “M:I” entry together. A couple of things may be different. For instance, this is reportedly the first film in the franchise completely shot with digital cameras. (The change in format is noticeable during some exterior night shots and an endlessly hyped motorcycle stunt.) Mostly, though, everything looks and feels the same.
The threat this time is harder to pin down: a scheming and manipulative AI, linked to a Russian submarine, that might just unleash chaos worldwide if it falls into the wrong hands. An antagonist that cannot be touched or physically vanquished appears to be a challenge tailor-made for a franchise that fashions itself the thinking moviegoer's action spectacle. Unfortunately, it amounts to little more than narrative Scotch tape linking a series of elaborate setpieces together.
And make no mistake: the action is competently staged. Hunt and his team (Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are among the returning familiar faces) dodge bullets, hack their way to a solution and figure out confounding riddles in the nick of time like the pros they are. An extended chase sequence through the streets of Rome starts out in a perfunctory fashion, then continues to escalate until it reaches a level of absurdity that is pretty admirable.
It should all be great fun (and the Rome car chase, as well as parts of “Fallout,” this film's 2018 predecessor, are exhilarating), but my overriding gripe with the way McQuarrie approaches the material remains the same: he takes it way too seriously. His technical dexterity is undeniable, but the showmanship, sadly, comes in low doses.
Hayley Atwell as Grace and Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a scene from "Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One." (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Skydance).
It's a shame, because a new addition to the cast, a high-stakes thief called Grace, played with verve by Hayley Atwell, could have given the franchise the shot in the arm it needed. Alas, Atwell is too often reduced to a cog in McQuarrie's machine, showing vulnerability and deceit when the film calls for it and not much else. Also showing considerable squandered potential is the film's chief human baddie, an enigmatic sociopath named Gabriel, well played by Esai Morales. There's a glimmer of a better film whenever this villain exploits Hunt's fears and weak spots.
But McQuarrie, working from a screenplay credited to him and Erik Jendresen, is too busy grinding the film to a halt at various intervals to have the characters explain the plot. You know, because popcorn-munching Joe Moviegoer can't be trusted to figure out the story unless it's being spoonfed. More than anything, the summary powwows only serve to make an already overlong sequel even longer. They also deprive the movie of the element of surprise, something that's pretty important in a spy tale like this one. Everything is overexplained to the extent that we find ourselves one step ahead of these agents.
Moreover, for a film where AI is the threat, it kind of defeats the purpose to have the bulk of the narrative revolve around a fancy key that, like this story, is made up of two halves. It undermines the intangible menace when you have the characters chasing a thingamajig with blinking lights.
Esai Morales as Gabriel and Pom Klementieff as Paris in a scene from "Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One." (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Skydance).
“Dead Reckoning Part One” plays like a heavily annotated variation on Alfred Hitchcock's “Saboteur,” with shades of Michael Mann. If “Rogue Nation” and “Fallout” felt more like work than escapism, “Reckoning 1,” feels like taking a class. You stop wondering about what new obstacle Hunt will have to face and start asking yourself whether that last bit of information will be on the test. It dots every “i” and crosses every “t” with such fastidiousness that it almost doesn't come across as one half of a two-part story,
At the center is an aging A-lister with off-screen baggage who's become more of a brand than a screen presence. Cruise used to take chances. He tended to throw a couple of smaller films in between the action tentpoles to mix it up and get his creative juices flowing. Where did that versatile actor go? (Back in 2004, he even played a bad guy in Mann's “Collateral.”) The Oscar nominee, who turned 61 on Monday, is finally showing his age on screen. That's good. He's also stiffer than he's ever been. That's bad. He's locked in a cycle of codependency with his current director, delivering a film that feels meticulously planned and mapped out. What's missing is the thrill of the unknown.
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." (Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios).
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”: The archaeologist with a fedora and a propensity for getting into tight spots didn't become a household name just because of his good looks and his ability to crack a whip. There was a secret sauce behind the implausible escapes, grotesque imagery, ancient puzzle-solving and good old-fashioned Nazi bashing. The melding of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas' sensibilities yielded a winning trio of 1930s adventures (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” its prequel, “Temple of Doom,” and “The Last Crusade”), as well as a jovial misfire set in the '50s (2008's “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”), propelled as they were by a juvenile spirit rooted in the matinee serials that inspired them.
But fast forward to this fifth, supposedly final entry, and it's difficult to muster up any enthusiasm. The return of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) — older, grumpier, more cynical — for one last adventure ought to have been a slam dunk, but “Dial of Destiny” is a summer bummer: sluggish, poorly paced and, worst of all, ugly to look at. It's a bloated eyesore that siphons off whatever goodwill we have toward its titular academic/unlikely action hero.
Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Voller in a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." (Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios).
An extended prologue set in 1944, when the tide was beginning to turn against Germany in World War II, threatens to derail the movie before it even gets going. Jones and fellow archaeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) are after a priceless artifact, which they believe to be in the Nazis' possession. The duo unwittingly stumble into the titular relic, an invention of Greek mathematician Archimedes that wasn't the treasure were looking for, sought by Nazi scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen). All three men and a train filled with Nazis will converge aboard a train filled with priceless items taken during the invasion of European cities.
It should be a blast, but the sequence is a bust. The biggest culprit here is Ford's de-aging. Rather than turning him into a younger, wax figure version of his younger self, much like Robert De Niro in “The Irishman” or Robert Downey Jr. in “Captain America: Civil War,” it makes Ford look like one of the characters Tom Hanks voiced in “The Polar Express.” Uncanny valley Indy is a distracting miscalculation in a sequence that, in retrospect, feels like dead weight in a movie that could have used more than a little trimming.
“Dial of Destiny” then jumps forward to the summer of 1969, 12 years after the events in “Crystal Skull.” Jones is teaching at Hunter College in New York City, a grizzled shell of his former self. Also, conspicuously alone. He's approached by a face from the past, Basil's daughter Helena (“Fleabag's” Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who bombards him with questions about Archimedes' dial. Unbeknownst to them, Voller is tracking Helena, and all of a sudden, the game is afoot once more. Dangerous goons, exotic locales, the whole nine yards.
Ethann Isidore as Teddy, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Helena in a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." (Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios).
But I sat in an IMAX auditorium, staring at the oversized IMAX screen, as “Indy 5” lurched from one setpiece to another, bored. Where is the spark, that glint in its eye that separated the Indiana Jones movies, even “Crystal Skull,” from other period adventure films? It's locked away in a box at an undisclosed government storage facility. Ford does what he can, and there are a few moments when he comments on his character's aging body that are pretty touching, but he's fighting a losing battle here.
You could fault the new cast members, an insufferable Waller-Bridge in particular. But no. The bulk of the blame falls squarely on James Mangold, the filmmaker who was brave, or foolhardy, enough to take the reins from Spielberg. The “Walk the Line” and “Ford v Ferrari” director has an uneven body of work, but at least on paper, he made sense as a viable contender for the hot seat. But while his affection for Dr. Jones is palpable, he doesn't have the chops to bring those hairy pursuits to life the way Uncle Steven did. He lacks the clarity and spatial logic Spielberg brought to the table. In its place is a green screen-driven muddle, a morass of medium shots that, instead of placing viewers in the middle of the peril, turns them into casual observers.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Helena and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." (Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios).
“Dial of Destiny” is somewhat intriguing on the edges, with its late-'60s period and the transitional cultural moment the U.S. was going through, but the screenplay, credited to five writers, finds little inspiration beyond the obvious signposts. After what feels like an eternity, it seems like the film is going to deliver on its promise of what Archimedes' invention is capable of, but the payoff is astonishingly muted. It's too little, too late, bringing this overproduced stumble with too many cooks in the kitchen to a disappointing conclusion, and reducing what could have been a fulfilling swan song to a feeble victory lap. What a letdown.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is now playing across South Florida, including IMAX engagements at Regal South Beach, AMC Aventura, AMC Sunset Place, CMX Dolphin Mall and the AutoNation IMAX at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale. You're going to have to wait a little longer to see “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” which opens in wide release next Wednesday, July 12.
