Christian Black / Paramount Pictures
Having pulled off a miraculous multifaceted mission with 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick—which revitalized the post-pandemic box-office, reconfirmed its headliner’s eternal youthfulness, and bested its illustrious ’80s predecessor in thrills and charm—Tom Cruise returns to the spy game fold with Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, the first installment of a two-film franchise finale that aims to demonstrate that the 60-year-old leading man can still do it all.
That includes, of course, executing astonishing stunts on his own, which Cruise does in the third act of this summer-season sequel, driving a motorcycle off a ramp-like cliff in the Austrian Alps and parachuting onto a moving train. It’s yet another testament to his enduring virility, as well as the latest in a long line of daredevil feats designed to take moviegoers’ breath away and raise the blood pressure of the tentpole production’s insurers.
Cruise’s is an analog star fighting the good fight against CGI unreality, and whereas his prior blockbuster pitted his ace pilot against unmanned drones, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One has his IMF super-agent Ethan Hunt square off against an even greater digital foe determined to make man obsolete: artificial intelligence.