Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Rewatch all the “Mission: Impossible” movies before the highly-anticipated release of “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One” on Wednesday, July 12. This is the seventh installment of the series that started back in 1996, with Tom Cruise playing super-spy Ethan Hunt of the top-secret Impossible Mission Force.
“Dead Reckoning Part One” is also the third “Mission: Impossible” film written and directed by his close collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, who also wrote last year’s massive hit “Top Gun: Maverick.” McQuarrie came in around the fourth “M:I” installment, “Ghost Protocol,” for an uncredited rewrite, and saved the series by saving Ethan Hunt. The plan was to hand the franchise over to Jeremy Renner, but McQuarrie corrected that near-mistake, and with “Rogue Nation,” “Fallout” and now “Dead Reckoning,” he and Cruise have created one the greatest action movie franchises of all time.
It’s easy enough to rewatch all the films—they’re all available on Paramount+. And while rewatching all six is an immense pleasure, it’s understandable to not have the time or space to drop everything and rewatch all the movies in a week (but if you can, do).
If you only have time to rewatch (or watch) one film, make it “Mission: Impossible - Fallout,” the sixth and most recent installment of the franchise from 2018. Firstly, it might be the greatest action spy thriller ever made, and it features Cruise’s craziest stunts yet (until “Dead Reckoning”). There’s the HALO jump onto the Louvre, an incredible car and motorcycle chase in Paris traffic, a foot race across rooftops (which resulted in Cruise breaking an ankle) and of course his famous helicopter climb—all performed live and in the flesh. These are the kind of action sequences that will make you gasp and scream in your living room, and yell “how did they shoot that?”
“Fallout” also includes most of the same crew that Ethan’s been working with for a while—Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and disavowed MI-6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). It also provides an intro to Vanessa Kirby’s White Widow, a glamorous arms dealer/broker and her thuggish brother Zola (Frederick Schmidt). All of these characters return in “Dead Reckoning Part One,” so prioritize “Fallout” on your rewatch list.
If you can add another, make it “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation” (2015), the fifth film in the series, also written and directed by McQuarrie. “Rogue Nation” is our first introduction to Ilsa Faust, who has become an iconic character in the series, serving as the female counterpart to lone wolf Ethan. Both agents are out in the cold at times, Ilsa working for whomever will hire her for her particular set of skills—she’s both a sharpshooter and a martial artist. There’s an interest and affection between her and Ethan, but also an understanding that it’s unlikely to work out, romantically, because of their work. Their dynamic is built upon mutual appreciation and respect, and it’s quite unlike any other quasi-romantic pairing on screen. This film also introduces the villain Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) who figures prominently in “Fallout.”
Time for another? Make it the first “Mission: Impossible,” from 1996 directed by Brian De Palma. De Palma’s style is all Cold War-style spycraft with an erotic, voyeuristic tinge, and the film established some of the iconic set pieces (Ethan suspended into a secure room at CIA headquarters at Langley; a brawl atop a train speeding through the Chunnel), as well as the unique tone of the series. More importantly, one of the main antagonists of this film, Kittredge (Henry Czerny), returns in “Dead Reckoning.”
As for the other three, watch “Mission: Impossible 3,” directed by JJ Abrams, to remind yourself why Ethan Hunt doesn’t date much, and also to take in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s incredible villainous performance. The fourth film, “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,” directed by Brad Bird, features a fun bit with Benji and Ethan at the Kremlin, as well as the iconic, vertiginous sequence that had Cruise scaling the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The second, “Mission: Impossible 2” is a fascinating artifact from the year 2000, directed by John Woo, with Limp Bizkit on the soundtrack. It’s a true auteur piece by Woo and Cruise is all in: there’s lots of slow-motion, abstract action sequences, and doves flying everywhere. Cruise performs a beachside motorcycle duel with villain Dougray Scott.
Stream all six movies on Paramount+ and secure your tickets for “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One,” which is absolutely the can’t-miss movie spectacle of the summer.
———
