I had low expectations coming into the preview. The last one in the series - 2018's Fallout felt tiresome. I was wrong. I was completely mesmerized by this. Dead Reckoning Part One is pure escapism from start to finish and it's no mean feat to do that since it has a running time of 2 hours and 43 minutes and actually leaves you wanting more.
Cruise's Ethan Hunt and the rest of the IMF crew from the previous films Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) had to face their biggest adversary yet. Kudos to the film's director/writer Christopher McQuarrie and co-writers Erik Jendresen and Bruce Geller for making AI an integral part of the film. Just like real life, the arrival of artificial intelligence into our daily lives provides a scary afterthought. The IMF team makes all effort that a key object that can control AI doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
All the ladies in the films Rebecca Feguson, Hayley Atwell and Vanessa Kirby were fully utilized. From the Bering Sea to the Austrian Alps, the locations chosen were all top notch and Cruise' stunts are indeed a labor of love from him.
After last year's unexpected critical and commercial success of Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise is on a winning streak. I'm looking forward to Reckoning Part Two and hopefully make one more film that can finally win him a long overdue Academy Award.
