The Mission: Impossible franchise has always been daring and boundary-pushing but since Christopher McQuarrie was brought into the fold, first as a screenwriter and later as a director, the franchise has really found an identity. That identity goes far beyond just being a series of state-of-the-art action movies. The thrills from McQuarrie’s M:I movies don’t just come from the stunts, which are utterly spectacular, or the shocking, mask-peeling plot twists. You’re not just getting the junk food here, you’re getting a complete, balanced meal.
Dead Reckoning Part One serves up a prime example of well-rounded action filmmaking about a third of the way through the film, when our characters are thrust into one of the most elaborate and well-executed car chases I’ve ever seen. From a technical standpoint, the sequence is loaded with original and creative gags. We’re not just cutting from our heroes’ car to the car that’s chasing them. Some of the things that happen in this car chase are terrifying, and some of them are hilarious.
This car chase lasts a really long time, and that’s because it’s doing a lot of work for the story. As the car chase continues, we learn about Hayley Atwell’s character Grace, what she’s good at, what she’s not good at, how she interacts with Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and how she handles stress. We learn a little about the character chasing them, the mysterious Paris played by Guardians of the Galaxy star Pom Klementieff. We don’t learn a ton about Paris but we learn enough to be genuinely terrified of her for the remainder of the film.
