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.
