I still can’t believe Tom Cruise is 61. Impossible! And how the hell is he doing another Mission Impossible movie? How does this series seem to get more complex and dangerous over time? Strap in. It’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (Part One)…what’s up with all this punctuation?
This installment opens up on a Russian submarine equipped with advanced artificial intelligence that has infiltrated some of the advanced computer systems around the world, rendering the vessel virtually invisible to the entire world. The AI, though, has gone rogue and tricked the sub into firing a torpedo at itself. One juice bit of information here is that the AI can only be controlled by a key split into two pieces. Put the pieces together, and you control the world.
The key is the film’s McGuffin. The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) is in possession of one piece and plans to sell the key to the highest bidder once she’s in possession of the other piece. Who has the other piece? This is where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) comes in. The other piece is traveling with a clandestine courier, and Hunt needs to put a tracker on the key and follow it to The White Widow. Once he has the fully assembled key, he can hand it over to the always good and righteous U.S. government featuring the return of Henry Czerny as Kittridge to make all things right again with the world.

“…the AI can only be controlled by a key split into two pieces. Put the pieces together, and you control the world.”
In his way is Grace (Haley Atwell), a highly-skilled thief and pick-pocket hired by an unknown client to steal the key without knowing the true nature of the key. It’s up to Hunt’s team, Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), to save the world.
Then there’s the AI, the film’s prime villain. The AI has entrusted Ethan’s longtime nemesis, Gabriel (Esai Morales), and his henchperson, Paris (Pom Klementieff), to track down the key for a much bigger plan…did I mention this is a Part One? The intriguing thing about this AI is that it cannot only screw around with the world’s computer networks, thus rendering Gabriel invisible to the world and constantly throwing Hunt off his scent. But the AI is so intelligent it can anticipate every movie Ethen makes throughout the film, from his following action to his thought process on finding the key.