Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) * *

Directed by:  Christopher McQuarrie

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Cary Elwes, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Henry Czerny

The first two hours of Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part One are standard Mission: Impossible fare consisting of endless car chases, fights, and everyone chasing after a key which unlocks the secrets of an AI program called The Entity.  This Entity is the self-aware program the folks in The Terminator series warned us about.   If it falls into the wrong hands, then it will become the biggest threat to humankind since the last item Ethan Hunt or James Bond needed to procure to prevent a similar fate to the planet.

The key itself is actually in two pieces, with various parties obtaining custody of them at different points in the movie, similar to the plot of the lackluster Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  We have the key halves switching from person to person, or are they counterfeit, and where is the lock which the key must unlock?  No matter, it's the item everyone chases from Abu Dhabi to Venice to the Austrian Alps.   Aside from Mission: Impossible III (featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the series' most memorable villain to date), Mission: Impossible movies are stylishly produced but mostly disposable entertainments.  Aside from Tom Cruise in the lead role in this now seventh installment of the long-running series, I have long forgotten most of the movies in the series.

Two constants in the movies are Ethan's sidekicks Luther (Rhames) and Benji (Pegg), who provide humorous byplay and computer wizardry.  They are the closest thing Ethan has to family.  Also along is Ilsa Faust (Ferguson), who somehow found half of the key and was soon descended upon by hired assassins in a Middle Eastern desert sandstorm.  The main villain, besides The Entity, is Gabriel (Morales), a shadowy person from Hunt's past and one of the reasons Hunt became a disavowed super agent in the first place.   New to the franchise is Grace (Atwell), a pickpocket who picked the wrong pocket of the wrong man at the wrong time and finds herself thrown headlong into this adventure.

Mission: Impossible is more known for its stunts and action.  At two hours, forty-five minutes, the fights, chases, and time explaining what exactly The Entity is take up a significant amount of the running time.  The final forty-five minutes, however, perks up the interest as all interested parties in The Entity are gathered on a train traveling through the Austrian Alps.  The creativity in the action sequences and the energy are jolting, causing excitement that was frankly missing in the first two hours.  I may have just enough interest to watch Part Two, but if Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, Part One were a short film, it would win an Oscar in that category.