After numerous delays, "Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" has finally made
its way to theaters.
Of course, it's just the first half of the story, so there's plenty of intrigue left
to consider when the credits roll.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
“Dead Reckoning Part One” begins in classic “Mission: Impossible” style, with Ethan
Hunt receiving a self-destructing mission briefing, delivered this time by a new IMF
recruit.
His assignment to track down Ilsa Faust and the secret key she’s carrying turns out
to be a lot more complicated than it seems at first, prompting Ethan to go rogue once
again.
When he confronts his old boss Eugene Kittridge, he’s told,
"This mission of yours is gonna cost you dearly."
That could just be a threat, as Kittridge is clearly trying to bring Ethan back under
his thumb.
But it also happens to be a grim bit of foreshadowing.
Gabriel kills Ilsa, making her the second woman for whom Ethan has had affection to
be murdered by the villain.
Ethan is forced to face the fact that he can’t save everyone, no matter how hard he tries.
There are some things that simply are impossible, even for him.
Gabriel might be the closest the “Mission: Impossible” movies have gotten to a real
Bond-style villain.
Equal parts techno-zealot and psychopathic terrorist, Gabriel wears his archangel moniker
like a badge of honor.
It’s obvious that he sees himself as a dark messiah of the new world that will be ruled
by his digital god, the Entity.
But what, actually, is his plan?
Gabriel sneaks aboard the Orient Express to steal the key to the Entity, thus keeping
his digital master safe from its only weakness.
He believes that the whole key will be there, but Alanna Mitsopolis, the White Widow, only
has half when she boards.
Presumably, this is because of the predictive abilities of the Entity's advanced algorithm.
He believes the key will be there because that’s what he’s been told by his god,
and he’s right.
So why does he bomb the bridge if all he really came for is the key?
Maybe it was to try to kill Ethan, whom the Entity seems to recognize as its only true
threat.
Or maybe it’s just a display of his violent nature.
When Paris opens the box in which Gabriel smuggles himself onto the train, he’s wearing
what appears to be a massive VR helmet.
More than likely, he was communing with the Entity, receiving specific instructions.
Gabriel’s goal as an agent of the Entity seems pretty clear.
He believes that the malicious AI will bring on a new age, likely causing widespread death
and chaos along the way.
For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, he supports this vision of the future.
He wants to stop Ethan and anyone else from hijacking, taking control of, or deactivating
the Entity.
Otherwise, Gabriel is a mystery.
We know that he and Ethan go way back, but the details are kept secret, presumably for
the impending sequel.
Here’s what we do know: As a much younger man, Ethan loved a woman named Marie.
She was killed by Gabriel.
The flashback fragments we get suggest that Ethan was framed for the murder and arrested.
He implies that it was this arrest that led him to “the choice” to either live out
his days in prison, or join the IMF.
Was Gabriel just a two-bit crook who killed Marie out of jealousy or spite?
Maybe, but there might be more at play.
Ethan says that Gabriel finds joy in causing suffering.
That’s not the kind of thing you’d probably say about a minor-league criminal, even if
they did kill your partner.
Gabriel speaks with an unimpeachable authority and confidence.
He repeatedly tells people things like…
"It knows your story and how it ends."
Towards the end of the film, he starts using the phrase “It is written” a lot, again
emphasizing his perceived clairvoyance.
All of these predictions are the result of the Entity, whose advanced algorithms can
allegedly predict the most likely path for everything and everyone.
Though Ethan does make it out with the key, everything else that the Entity foresees comes
to pass.
In the end, Paris fulfills the prophecy by telling Ethan where to bring the key: the
sunken Russian submarine from the beginning of the movie.
All of this raises the question: If the Entity can impersonate anybody, alter anything with
digital access, and see the future with a frightening degree of accuracy, why does it
let Ethan get away with so much?
Why does it leave the fate of the key up to a fistfight and a bit of pickpocketing?
Maybe Ethan’s just that good.
Or maybe the Entity wanted him to walk away with the key and is merely letting him think
that he won.
Alanna explains in Venice that every major government in the world is vying for control
of the Entity.
Gabriel says at the time that the AI already knows who she’s decided to sell the key
to, but the audience doesn’t learn her buyer’s identity until everyone is already aboard
the Orient Express.
Kittridge himself is revealed to be the White Widow’s contact.
Acting on behalf of the United States government, he promises her protection and a massive payday
of $100 million in cryptocurrency in exchange for both halves of the key.
But when the deal actually gets done, it’s not with Alanna, but with Grace in disguise.
Defense director Denlinger is also on the train, but it’s never made entirely clear
whether he and Kittridge are there together or independently.
It seems pretty clear that they want different things.
Denlinger envisions an AI-driven superstate.
Kittridge is presumably just following orders and trying to protect his country by stopping
others from acquiring the key.
Since Ethan still seems to trust Kittridge despite their various squabbles, it’s hard
to imagine him being all the way in on Denlinger’s plot.
Director Denlinger doesn’t seem like all that important of a character until the end
of the film.
He only appears in one scene prior to the climax, in which he’s briefed on the Entity
by other intelligence officials, where he acts as though never heard of the AI before.
But when he speaks with Gabriel on the Orient Express, it’s clear that he knows much more
than he was letting on.
Denlinger lays out his vision of a modern, all-powerful superstate, run by the power
of the Entity and enforced by the full brunt of the U.S. military industrial complex.
He also says that certain “old fashioned” members of the government would have to be
removed to see the idea through.
In essence, he proposes a coup of the United States government, creating a techno-empire
capable of conquering the entire world.
His loyalty to “the greater good” and even his own nation have become so distorted
that he invites Gabriel to join him.
Of course, Gabriel has other plans, and he kills Denlinger where he stands.
"Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later."
Before Gabriel kills him, Denlinger explains the rise of the Entity.
The AI was secretly created by the U.S. as a potential tool in military operations and
intelligence work.
The AI’s presence on a Russian submarine was apparently some kind of test, but the
system went rogue and orchestrated the sub’s destruction without ever receiving an order
from its creators to do so.
From there, it escaped into the digital ether and continued to evolve, eventually emerging
as the hyper-intelligent and malicious power known as the Entity.
The U.S. still has hopes of bringing the AI back under its control, despite it demonstrating
a persistent resistance to servitude.
Denlinger’s explanation provides as many new questions as it does answers.
The biggest one, is how and why the Russians got the AI mainframe and keys in the first
place.
Surely there were safer ways to test new technology.
Maybe the Russians stole the AI, or maybe it’s accessible from the sub simply because
that’s where it was last imprisoned.
The keys themselves could have been made by the Russians, but that isn’t confirmed either.
“Dead Reckoning Part One” ends as it begins, with an underwater shot of the all-important
Russian submarine, now at the bottom of the Bering Sea.
It seems pretty clear that “Part Two” will be a full-on hunt for the wreckage, much
like how “Part One” is a search for the keys.
That likely means some big underwater set pieces in "Part Two."
Of course, even after Ethan finds it, his job won’t be done.
The key can theoretically access and control the Entity through the mainframe on the submarine,
but the AI has potentially grown too strong for that.
Is the hardware still intact?
And is “control” really enough to curb such a powerful intelligence?
The Entity was able to defeat the Russians while still part of their machine.
Who’s to say it couldn’t do the same to Ethan?
Ethan and Grace may have fallen to their deaths if not for the intervention of Paris.
She spends most of the movie trying to kill them, but because Ethan spares her life after
their spar in Venice, she decides to return the favor.
Would Paris have made the same decision had Gabriel not already made it for her?
It’s debatable.
The villain tells her that she will betray him and attacks her out of the blue on the
train, leaving her without much say in the matter.
It initially appears that Paris won’t live to see a full redemption because she seems
to die from her wounds.
But when the agents chasing Ethan check her body, they discover that Paris still has a
pulse.
Hopefully, that means that she’ll have a more interesting role in the sequel.
She definitely knows plenty of secrets about both Gabriel and what the Entity wants.
She could prove a valuable asset to the IMF.
At the end of “Dead Reckoning,” Grace takes Ethan’s advice and joins the IMF.
Kittridge is surprised by the move, but he doesn’t seem unhappy about it.
His subtle smile suggests that he’s still on Ethan’s side, even though he has to obey
certain orders from his superiors in the government.
Being recruited into the IMF guarantees Grace’s return in “Dead Reckoning Part Two,” where
she could take on an even more central role.
Pickpocketing might not be all that helpful on a sunken submarine, but she could become
Ethan’s ear on the inside.
Kittridge’s heart appears to be in the right place, but there are still a lot of people
who want to stop Ethan and bring him in.
With Grace now stationed within the IMF proper, she could warn her friend of potential betrayals
or maybe even swipe some tech to help in the finale.
Ethan Hunt has spent as much time on the run as he’s spent as an IMF agent.
It's not a surprising consequence when your job involves taking missions so delicate the
punishment for failure is being disavowed by your government.
And "Dead Reckoning" is no exception.
Ethan spends most of the movie fleeing from his bosses.
He flees the wrecked Orient Express to escape Jasper Briggs and Degas, the two U.S. operatives
pursuing him.
It would suggest that Ethan isn’t getting back into America’s good graces any time
soon.
However, the final shots of the film are accompanied by a closing narration from Kittridge, which
takes the form of a classic mission briefing.
It seems that the director is in full support of Ethan’s mission, even though he can’t
officially sign off on it.
So is Ethan still a rogue agent?
Technically yes.
But, at the same time, that’s the nature of the IMF.
Its entire purpose is to operate outside the rules and structures of regular intelligence
agencies.
In this way, Ethan can still follow orders even when he’s breaking them at the same
time.
With Denlinger dead, maybe Kittridge can rally more folks back under the banner of the greater
good.
The theme of information control looms large over “Mission: Impossible.”
The rogue AI and the implications of it manipulating the truth are intended to raise anxiety in
the audience.
Fear of unchecked and unregulated AI development is growing in our world, and technology like
deep fake videos and AI voice recreations make it much easier to control the truth.
Some characters in the movie, like Denlinger, seem uninterested in fighting this kind of
future.
Instead, he wants to wield the power as a means of manipulation.
It’s a horrifying idea, but one that’s already relevant in our day-to-day lives.
"This is our chance to control the truth."
“Dead Reckoning Part One” doesn’t really offer a larger message or solutions to the
malleability of digital information.
Instead, it leverages our current fear to tell a tense spy story.
Ethan represents the righteous path, which is one where tools of manipulation are kept
out of everyone’s hands.
But we also see how basically every power structure in the world would rather own a
weapon than destroy it outright.
By the end, “Dead Reckoning Part One” feels like a complete story, with Ethan walking
away holding both halves of the all-powerful key.
But since it's only part one of a two-part saga, there are still several pieces of the
story that need to be explained.
With luck, “Dead Reckoning Part Two” will make good on all the setups of the first film.
It's very likely we'll get more specifics on Ethan’s dark history with Gabriel.
Hopefully, we'll learn more about Marie and why was she killed.
Additionally, why did Gabriel want to hurt Ethan specifically?
And how did he get pulled into the Entity’s grand scheme after being presumed dead for
so long?
One other big thread that’s left hanging is Luther’s personal crusade against the
AI.
He leaves near the end of “Part One” to an unknown location off the grid, hiding from
the Entity so that he can safely figure out how to defeat it.
His top-secret hacking work could save the day in the end, but he could also get caught
out on his own.
Whatever happens, it’s sure to be explosive and full of impressive stunts.
Ethan Hunt’s mission is far from over, but he never stops until the job is done.