Tom Cruise, Battling Rogue AI, Saves the Summer Movie Season in Latest ‘Mission Impossible’

“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” is surging into theaters for its debut weekend, delivering all the action and adventure audiences expect from the franchise’s star, Tom Cruise, whose heroics as Ethan Hunt may rescue Hollywood from a disappointing summer box office just as the Writers Guild of America strike halts production.As with last summer’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Dead Reckoning” includes a pre-show statement from Mr. Cruise — here joined by the film’s director, Christopher McQuarrie — thanking audiences for watching in the theater as they intended. Their film is just too big to be constrained by tiny screens.Breaking the fourth wall is a reminder of just how important making quality films is to Mr. Cruise. That dedication shows up in his insistence on doing his own stunts, even though he was ages 59 to 61 during the Covid-delayed production, because unlike the masks used to impersonate characters in the films, he feels stunt men are just too obvious.“Dead Reckoning,” like “Maverick,” delivers because it doesn’t rely on green screens or CGI. Mr. McQuarrie also resisted using de-aging technology on Mr. Cruise, as he told GamesRadar. While researching the effect, he found some good, some not, all distracting. “Never,” he said, “did I find myself actually following the story.”The use of practical effects over computers is appropriate, since the central plot of “Dead Reckoning” is an AI program, “The Entity,” seeking world domination, to erase “old think,” an Orwellian term from “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” and impose a one-world “superstate.”AI is a key sticking point in the writers’ strike, and “Dead Reckoning” makes an eloquent case that computers can’t replace the excitement of human beings in real situations. Your correspondent had to refrain from saying, “Oof,” for every crunch of metal on metal thanks to the expert use of natural audio rather than a sound board.Every car, motorcycle, and train crash was — in the lyrics of Mr. Cruise’s fellow New Jersey Native, Bruce Springsteen, in Badlands — “a head-on collision smashin’ in my guts, man.” As in “Maverick,” where he insisted on flying real jets, viewers can see and feel everything.It’s also to the filmmaker’s credit that they don’t overuse the “Mission Impossible” theme, which can make any mundane scene seem like action. The Impossible Mission Force may use gimmicks and sleights of hand — again, all performed by the actors — to fight The Entity, but they play no such tricks on viewers.The supporting cast is just as strong from Ving Rhames’ computer hacker Luther Stickell and agent Benji Dunn, played by Simon Pegg, as well as Henry Czerny’s IMF director, Eugene Kittridge. Their expressions and body language convey the gravity of the mission without clunky exposition dumps.Four women round out the cast and again recall better times, before the trope of “strong female character” came to mean being snide and unflappable, with no character arc needed because they arrive on screen perfect. Hayley Atwell’s thief, Grace, looks terrified at times. This doesn’t make her weak. It makes her genuine and raises the stakes.Like classic Hollywood femme fatales, Grace can fight, but uses her other talents first. When she solves a riddle, it’s not done at the expense of the male characters. She’s just a smart person with something to contribute to the mission, which rather than the usual objective of killing the bad guy includes a subplot of letting him live.Unlike Grace, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust is a seasoned operative, more capable with weapons and hand-to-hand. Vanessa Kirby and Pom Klementieff’s antagonists are also three-dimensional, as is Esai Morales’s villain, Gabriel, assuming the name of the biblical archangel in service of his AI god.“Dead Reckoning” is a throwback to Hollywood’s Golden Age, giving audiences a reason to flock to theaters again. We have seen rogue AI portrayed as far back as 1970’s “Colossus: The Forbin Project,” but the threat is closer than ever today. We can feel its danger in this film, which leaves audiences on the edge of their seats, waiting for 2024’s Part Two to see if man will triumph over machine or plunge Mr. Cruise’s fictional world into a digital dark age.

Tom Cruise, Battling Rogue AI, Saves the Summer Movie Season in Latest ‘Mission Impossible’

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