‘Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One Review’: Tom Cruise Soars, But the Women Fly Higher
The seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise shows why this might be the greatest action series ever.
Over the past four decades, Tom Cruise has turned Mission: Impossible into one of the greatest action film series of all time, a franchise that continuously has pushed the possibilities of what a modern blockbuster could be, and found new terrifying ways to put Cruise into harm’s way for our amusement. After an intriguing start to the series with a stretch of directors like Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, and Brad Bird, Cruise found his match with Christopher McQuarrie, who has helmed this series since 2015’s Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. Despite the majority of the films involving Cruise’s Ethan Hunt being considered a rogue by the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), and despite the series pulling the same dang face mask trick on us over and over again, Mission: Impossible series has been consistently exciting, and because of Cruise’s dedication to bonkers stunts, this series has always felt more tactile, more real, more dangerous than your standard action film….