Mission Impossible 7 – Dead Reckoning Part One directed by Christopher McQuarrie (USA, 2023)
In MI7, multiple MacGuffins are imbedded within 163 minutes of action-packed nonsense which is designed to keep even the most severe ADHD sufferer fully engaged.
Its elaborate and deliberately confusing plot taps into two modern day fears : 1. That one day soon AI will come to dominate the world and, 2. That one day soon you won’t just misplace your house keys but lose them for good.
The mission for Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) should he decide to accept it (when has he not?) is to retrieve one part of two-piece cruciform key that looks like it might unlock a papal vault in Vatican City but which, when united with its other half, will allegedly enable access to world dominance. [Spoiler alert : you have to take preposterous premises of this kind of on trust].
Despite the preciousness of this small object, the possessors are continually careless. Having obtained it they slide into a trouser pocket like it was an item of loose change. This imprudence means that the key could be (and repeatedly is) purloined by any expert pickpocket who happens to be passing.
The archest of Hunt’s enemies is a George Clooney lookalike who goes by the name of Gabriel. He is the handsome but mean-spirited human face of AI which is also known as ‘The Entity’. The major worry is that this now sentient artificial intelligence will fall into the wrong hands . This begs the question as to what the right hands might be. Elon Musk’s name is never mentioned but my hunch is he might have gotten some extra warped ideas by watching this movie.
All the ensuing shenanigans are engineered to give Cruise the opportunity to show off his running prowess and to challenge him to undertake some reckless stunt work. The mission also necessitates an extended car chase through the streets of Rome which leaves a trail of destruction (how the hell did they film this?).
Mission Impossible is, of course, by now, a world-beating and dollar-grossing phenomenon which will run as long as Cruise still can. The latest in the series is as perversely addictive as all the others but it still left me feeling nostalgic for the hammy TV series that spawned this mega-franchise.
