Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One review says don’t let the lengthy run time intimidate you. You will be riveted from start to finish.

The big question: Can any film hold my undivided attention for more than two-and-a-half-hours?its

The joyful answer: Yes, YES, OH YES!

One of the most intriguing and gratifying elements in the film is the fact that it doesn’t depend entirely on the immense likability and star power of Tom Cruise—not that he can’t carry a film.

As much as we love to see him running, fighting, flying and brooding, there are other riveting and original features that add to this movie’s intrigue.

Sure, this is yet another action film that pits its heroes against a super villain angling to take over the world. But in Dead Reckoning Part One, the foe is not your basic evil genius with a UFA (unidentifiable foreign accent.) Nor is the villain some random omnipotent alien/god.

This particular threat is much more pervasive and much more frightening to the world as we know it. In fact, it’s probably threatening you this very minute. It’s coming at you through your cell phone, your laptop, it’s even preying on you in your car. Your kids are probably already beholden to it. You guessed it—it’s that ever looming artificial intelligence (AI).

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team are pitted against this entity’s human representative, Gabriel, (Esai Morales), interestingly enough sharing a name with the archangel known for heralding superlative events.

And the plot thickens. Gabriel, the IMF team, the government—they’re all in hot pursuit of a multi-faceted key that seems to be able to control this mysterious, omnipotent entity.

If only there were such a key in real life that could control AI. Unfortunately, there is no hard drive, no individual, no algorithm that can stop and remove AI’s threat. That’s one of the many reasons Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is so compelling, and one of the reasons we cheer for IMF—they actually have a crack at stopping it—it gives us small degree for humanity.

About humanity: The Mission Impossible franchise is impressively humane, compared to so many others. The action scenes are great but not gratuitous. There’s no huge body count. Human life, buildings, national monuments, etc. are not cavalierly destroyed just for impact.

When I see super hero or John Wick violence, I’m always thinking “Who’s going to clean that up? They just destroyed an entire city/priceless artifacts/the population of my home town. Hunt only kills when he absolutely has to, sometimes to his own detriment. And it’s the bad guys who destroy all the vehicles.

But wait. There’s more to love! Director Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible—Fallout, Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation) and his able cast that includes Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson (whom I’ve been loving in Silo on Apple TV+), Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames and Vanessa Kirby, go deeper into the personal side of IMF, exploring emotion and sentiment we’ve never seen before.

All these elements put together manage to keep up an extraordinarily scintillating pace for the duration of this lengthy  film. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but when the credits rolled, I wanted even more!

Looks like I’ll just have to wait for Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two comes out, currently slated for June 28, 2024.

Rated: PG-13

2 Hours 43 Minutes

If this Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One review makes you want to run like Tom Cruise over to your local cineplex, get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One review says don’t let the lengthy run time of the film intimidate you. You will be riveted from start to finish.