Movie reviews: 'Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One' is the ne plus ultra of modern, big-budget filmmaking

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — DEAD RECKONING PART ONE: 4 ½ STARS

When the “Mission: Impossible” franchise began in 1996 the movies were big, prestige spy thrillers, heavy on the intrigue and supported by large action sequences. Then came 2011’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” a popcorn flick built around an eye-popping sequence featuring star Tom Cruise scaling the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, with only a pair of suction gloves and courage coming between him and certain death.

That sequence made audience’s eyeballs dance and changed the focus of the franchise. It also turned Cruise into the Evel Knievel of cinematic risk taking.

Since then, the movies have been driven by the death-defying stunts performed by their star, the seemingly fearless Cruise, rather than the convoluted plots of the first batch of films. In the world of “Mission: Impossible” there is no building too high for Tom to climb, no chasm too wide for him to jump.

The new film, “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One,” files the actual story down to a nub—"I’m going to need a few more details,” says glamourous international thief Grace (Hayley Atwell), as if commenting on the script. “They tend to get in the way,” replies Benji, nodding his head.—while letting it rip with wild action sequences.

The catalyst for the action is artificial intelligence run amok. Called The Entity, it is an all-powerful machine, “who is everywhere and nowhere” and has no centre. “We don’t want to kill it,” says Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), the former director of the Impossible Missions Force, “we want to control it.”

The key to controlling it is, well, a key. Split into two halves, the key only works when made whole. Kittridge’s best chance of intercepting the key is the IMF, a secret group of expert spies made up of Ethan Hunt (Cruise), computer technician Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and sometimes member Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson).

The IMF’s mission, should they choose to accept it, is to retrieve one half of the key from glamourous international thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) before she can sell it to black market arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby). The fear is Mitsopolis will pass the key’s combined halves to terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales). “None of our lives can matter more than the mission,” says Stickell.

Cue feats of daring-do and wild action.

“Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning” is the ne plus ultra of modern, big-budget studio filmmaking. Director Christopher McQuarrie manages the breathless, super-sized movie with an expert hand, blending old school action movie filmmaking with real stakes.

Whether it is Cruise flying through the air on a motorcycle or navigating through the streets of Rome in a tiny, but speedy European car or hanging on for dear life as a train car disintegrates around him, the green-screenless action scenes seem to be saying, “Take that Marvel.” The organic stunts, no matter how foolhardy they may be, up the stakes, have real danger to them and set “Dead Reckoning” apart from most action flicks. It is escapism at an eye-watering level.

Tempering the action is some humour and an emphasis on the connections between the characters. Loyalty to the cause has always been paramount in these movies, but the bond between the characters has been tempered, probably because we are near the end of the franchise, by a dose of nostalgia and sentimentality.

Still, this is, first and foremost, an action movie, the characters each have an archetype to fill. Rhames and Pegg are the playful foils, Vanessa Kirby is a deliciously vampy femme fatale and Esai Morales is the kind of baddie who makes grand pronouncements like, “I will disappear like smoke in a hurricane.”

Most notable is the latest lead addition, Grace. She is a slippery character whose motives shift and change with the wind, which makes her interesting. Unlike Isla (Rebecca Ferguson), however, who could handle herself in any situation, Grace is more a damsel in distress, although in the arena of self-preservation, she is a master. She is the kind of character that franchises are built around.

“Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One” isn’t all played at 11. It has peaks and valleys, of course, but the valleys are welcome respite from the sensory overload provided by the spectacle and adrenaline. It is a heckuva mission, satisfying, even if we have to wait a year or more, for the story’s conclusion.

THE MIRACLE CLUB: 2 ½ STARS

Despite the title, “The Miracle Club” isn’t so much about miracles as it is redemption, faith and uplift.

Set in 1967, in Ballygar, Ireland, this is the story of four women. Chrissie (Laura Linney) left the seaside town for Boston under a cloud 40 years before and hasn’t been back. When she returns for her mother’s funeral, she must face the demons of the past, and the people she left behind, including her former BFF Eileen (Kathy Bates) and her late mother’s passive-aggressive best friend Lily (Maggie Smith). Bitterness runs deep between the three, each harbouring grudges that have bubbled for four decades.

At a church fundraiser, Father Dermot Byrne (Mark O’Halloran)—the local priest and centre of religious life in the small town—throws a talent show. The prize is a trip to Lourdes in southwest France. One of the most visited places by Catholics from around the world, it is a pilgrimage site where, since 1858, the faithful have flocked to pray for miracles while bathing in the healing waters where a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous is said to have witnessed visions of the Virgin Mary.

Despite their best efforts at the talent show, Eileen, Lily and new mom Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) come in second, winning a hunk of meat instead of the coveted tickets. The first-place winner, feeling sorry for them, offers his tickets to them, and soon they are boarding the bus for Lourdes. Along for the ride is Chrissie, who uses her mother’s ticket for the trip.

On site in the holy town, miracles are in short supply but the situation forces the three generations of women to confront their pasts and prejudices. “You don’t come to Lourdes for a miracle,” says Father Byrne. “You come for the strength to go on when there is no miracle.”

“The Miracle Club” isn’t about divine agency. Nothing miraculous happens, excepting the power of truth and compassion to heal the long-simmering wounds each of these women carry. Their shared trauma (NO SPOILERS HERE) overwhelms their lives, forming who they are as people. The actors imprint each of these characters with the cumulative weight of their lives, willing Eileen, Lily and Chrissie into stubborn life, despite a script that attempts to keep them as stereotypes.

It is these performances that give “The Miracle Club” much of its power to engage with the audience. It is in each of their abilities to imply the inner lives of the characters without necessarily verbalizing them, that shows how deeply they have been devastated by past events. That, and the movie’s evocative sense of time and place, create the backdrop for the more pedestrian story in the foreground.

THE DEEPEST BREATH: 3 ½ STARS

As extreme sports go, few entail the danger of free-diving. Often immersed hundreds of metres under the water, with no breathing apparatus, divers rely on mental and physical rigor to ensure success. One wrong move, a few seconds extra under the extraordinary pressure of the water, and all can be lost.

A new documentary, “The Deepest Breath,” now playing in theatres before moving to Netflix next week, is an up-close-and-personal look at the sport and the people who risk their lives to practice it.

Director Laura McGann assembles a study of the sport, vividly utilizing underwater photography and interviews with practitioners to provide context, and set the stage for the film’s main story, the story of Irish adventurer Stephen Keenan and Italian freediving champion Alessia Zecchini.

Determined to set a world’s record, Zecchini sets her sights on “the last quiet place on Earth,” the Blue Hole Arch, a claustrophobic 85-foot-long tunnel 184 feet below the Red Sea in Egypt. The treacherous tunnel has claimed at least 100 divers, so to aid in her dive, Keenan will act as her safety diver. His job is to track her underwater movements in case she gets lost or blacks out due to the lack of breath.

No spoilers here, but the dive does not go as planned.

With beautiful and often haunting underwater photography, director McGann gives “The Deepest Breath” a you-are-there feeling. The starkness of the dive footage effectively emphasizes the singularity of the sport; the self-reliance and mental preparation it takes to take the plunge.

The film is slightly less successful in the telling of its story. The first half of the doc is filled with choppy storytelling, archival interviews and digressions on behalf of its cast of characters. It makes for an uneven experience, but the immersive nature of the filmmaking in the ethereal underwater scenes calms any rough waters in the storytelling.

“The Deepest Breath” may not be a completely satisfying account of why people risk their lives in this extreme sport, but it is a compelling visual record of those who do.