Manager: Christopher McQuarrie
artists: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg
Year: 2023
Premiere: 12 July 2023
Punctuation: ★★★★
It may be impossible to fulfill the task around which the narrative adventure of Death Penalty – Part One revolves, but despite how persuasive Tom Cruise is to replace agent Ethan Hunt, it’s even more impossible to explain the details as you read the paragraphs. thick as tar, technological and geopolitical nonsense. The movie pits the protagonist against an artificial intelligence that can control every corner of the internet so that whoever owns it can control the world.But that doesn’t matter because as usual in the “Mission Impossible” saga, the plot is far less important than the violent kinetic energy it generates.
Taking us from Amsterdam to Innsbruck – via Yemen, Abu Dhabi, Rome and Venice – Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie of course provide us with a collection while constantly placing us in a succession of narrative hoaxes, plots and red herrings. Brilliant action choreographies where it’s always clear that the 61-year-old isn’t just an expert punishing himself to please the audience, he’s the actor himself.
McQuarrie proves that Cruise always knows the right place to place the camera to maximize the visual impact of his physical fantasies.Whether it’s during a frenzied car chase, a few of his famous sprints, the crazy motorcycle/skydiving that has gone viral for months, or the scene on a train that culminates in one of the creepiest derailments ever shown in a movie. screen, and this is just one of the various accolades paid here to the first film in the saga. So much crazy stuff happens throughout the 163-minute shoot that even though the movie is only the first episode of a sequel, it doesn’t leave audiences feeling like they’ve only seen half of the movie.. Yes, it’s not as satisfying as ‘Mission Impossible: Fallout’ (2018) because of the inevitable half-finished story its story leaves.
More than even the previous one, and even more than the other McQuarrie directed, “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” (2015), “Deadly Judgment – Part One” seems sweetened with a bit of a raid on Hunt’s psychology and past, friendship and loyalty. A few serious remarks about him and effectively funny doses of self-awareness of his own ridiculousness. And ultimately he turns the set into a metaphor for what Cruise has been advocating for some time, both on and off the screen: the importance of the human factor in the face of technology devoid of texture, personality, and soul, or more specifically, the need to protect commercial cinema from the tyranny of computers and algorithms. This is a particularly pertinent message, given that Hunt’s adventures will soon be a thing of the past and that could spell the end of one of Hollywood’s most dazzling movie franchises..