Movie Review: Take the Leap with Tom Cruise in ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One’ 

American actor Tom Cruise waves to fans during a red carpet event for the film "Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" in Seoul on June 29, 2023. (AFP)
American actor Tom Cruise waves to fans during a red carpet event for the film "Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" in Seoul on June 29, 2023. (AFP)
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Movie Review: Take the Leap with Tom Cruise in ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One’ 

American actor Tom Cruise waves to fans during a red carpet event for the film "Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" in Seoul on June 29, 2023. (AFP)
American actor Tom Cruise waves to fans during a red carpet event for the film "Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" in Seoul on June 29, 2023. (AFP)

Wondering if you should choose to accept the latest “Mission: Impossible” entry? Maybe you’re sick of all the bombast at the movie theater lately? Well, put it another way: Do you really want to disappoint Tom Cruise?

On the first day cameras were rolling for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One,” Cruise drove a motorcycle off an actual 4,000-foot Norwegian cliff and then parachuted down. He did it for you. The least you can do to repay him is watch his movie, right?

If you do give in, you’re in for a treat — a heart-pounding, never dragging, mission accomplished that takes audiences from the frozen Bering Sea to the rooftop of Abu Dhabi International Airport and the narrow alleyways of Venice.

It’s got plenty of facemasks being ripped off, a car chase through Rome, a shoot-out in the desert, a sword fight on a bridge and an intense, runaway train sequence that may top anything the franchise has ever produced.

“This is getting exciting,” one character says early on and you’ll heartily agree.

Christopher McQuarrie returns for the third time as director of the spy series — he also helped write Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick” — and he’s brought back love interest/spy Rebecca Ferguson, comic relief buddies Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, Vanessa Kirby as The White Widow and Henry Czerny as slimy Eugene Kittridge.

Newcomers include Esai Morales as a very bad baddie and Pom Klementieff as his psychotic aide. Hayley Atwell also makes her impressive debut, playing a master thief and possible romantic partner for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. (If that makes too many love interests, you’d be right.)

The bad guy isn’t a guy this time, it’s a haywire form of conscious artificial intelligence that has infiltrated every nation’s computer systems and represents a Hollywood fever dream of this emerging technology. (And maybe a swipe at CGI, too.)

This AI can foul up every digital device with “the power to bring the world to its knees” — or at least to a pre-internet, analog state. It’s “an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere.” The filmmakers aren’t too keen in giving too many specifics, leaving it an existential threat and giving it the very non-threatening nickname, The Entity.

“Dead Reckoning,” as the “Part One” in the full title suggests, is another action franchise going epic with several-part arcs — like “Spider-Verse” and “Fast & Furious” already this year — and uses a two-part special key as the plot device that everyone desperately needs, like in “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.”

The key here is sought by Cruise, our thief/love interest, a US Special Operations team, Morales’ nasty Gabriel and the arms dealer The White Widow. It soon gets swiped, pickpocketed and seized, jumping from owner to owner like an unwanted Secret Santa office gift.

What’s so special about this key? Somehow, the AI needs it and one estimate of its worth is $100 million, which seems pretty cheap, to be honest. “The fate of the world rests on finding whatever the key unlocks,” we are told. Rhames’ Luther warns his friend: “Ethan, you’re playing fourth dimensional chess with an algorithm.”

If other “Mission: Impossible” outings have sometimes felt that Hunt is, well, a little robotic, this time the filmmakers allow some humanity to peek through. Cruise shows some delightful annoyance at having to sit in the passenger seat as his car careens backward through Rome, like an exasperated Drivers’ Ed instructor after a long day. He also shows a tender side in Venice as he cuddles Ferguson in the twilight and they hold hands on a gondola.

Speaking of that car chase in Rome — the second time this year that the iconic Spanish Steps have been shattered by a brash, hulking US franchise — we get the delightful image of Cruise and Atwell handcuffed together scooting along in a tiny, vintage yellow Fiat 500.

“Is anyone NOT chasing us?” she asks.

All the interested parties come together at one of those big, elegant Eurotrash dance parties with dark lighting, thumping rave music and writhing dancers on platforms that only Hollywood seems to love, a sequence most recently bettered by “John Wick: Chapter 4” in Berlin.

Then a movie that started filming pre-pandemic and has a two-and-a-half-hour runtime, culminates with Cruise’s motorcycle leap, a breathless fight sequence on top of a steam train and then a derailment that forces the good guys to climb through railcar after railcar vertically as they dodge debris, bad guys and even, in a sly move, a falling piano.

Are you possibly not going to accept this mission? Tom Cruise basically flew for you. It would be rude to leave him hanging.



Death of South Korean Actor at 24 Sparks Discussion About Social Media and Internet Culture 

South Korean actor Kim Sae-ron arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (Yonhap via AP)
South Korean actor Kim Sae-ron arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (Yonhap via AP)
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Death of South Korean Actor at 24 Sparks Discussion About Social Media and Internet Culture 

South Korean actor Kim Sae-ron arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (Yonhap via AP)
South Korean actor Kim Sae-ron arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (Yonhap via AP)

South Korean actor Kim Sae-ron’s death this week has triggered an outpouring of grief and calls for changes to the way the country’s celebrities are treated in the public arena and on social media, which critics say can foster a culture of harassment.

The 24-year-old, who began her career as a child actor and earned acclaim for her roles in several domestic films, including the 2010 crime noir “The Man from Nowhere,” was found dead by a friend at her home in the country’s capital, Seoul, on Sunday. The National Police Agency has said that officers are not suspecting foul play and that Kim left no note.

Once among the brightest stars on South Korea’s vibrant movie and television scene, Kim struggled to find work after a 2022 drunk driving incident, for which she was later fined in court.

Online posts in South Korea are notoriously harsh toward celebrities who make missteps, especially women, and Kim faced constant negative coverage from news organizations that capitalized on public sentiment.

Newspapers and websites criticized her whenever she was seen partying with friends, or when she complained about her lack of work and nasty comments on social media. She was even criticized for smiling while filming an independent movie last year.

Following Kim’s death, several of the country’s major newspapers on Tuesday published editorials and opinion pieces lambasting the toxic online comments about the actor. Some invoked the 2019 deaths of K-Pop singers Seol-li and Goo Hara and the 2023 death of “Squid Games” actor Lee Sun-kyun while calling for a change in the “harsh, zero-tolerance” culture toward celebrities.

The Hankook Ilbo newspaper said the country's media outlets were part of the problem, lamenting that some outlets continued to exploit Kim for clicks even after her death, using provocative headlines that highlighted her past struggles.

The watchdog Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media on Tuesday criticized news organizations for blaming social media without considering their own “sensational and provocative reporting.”

Born in 2000, Kim began her acting career at age 9, with the 2009 film “A Brand New Life,” portraying a girl’s struggles to adjust to a new life after being left at an orphanage by her father. She rose to stardom with “The Man from Nowhere,” which was one of the biggest hits in the South Korean movie scene that year and won her a domestic acting award.

She starred in various movies and TV shows before the 2022 drunk driving incident.

Gold Medalist, Kim's former management agency, did not immediately answer calls for comment.