Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Story

When an Artificial Intelligence goes rogue – corrupting digital realities and military capabilities, and harvesting personal secrets enabling it to impersonate anyone and control pretty much any system on Earth – Ethan (Tom Cruise) is offered a new mission. He must find his old friend Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), who is rumoured to have one half of a key that, together with the other half, is the only thing capable of controlling or destroying the artificial ‘entity’. Ilsa and Ethan work together as a global race for the keys unfolds. When Grace (Hayley Atwell), an unwitting thief, steals the key for a secret contractor, she has no idea what she has become involved in and repeatedly foils Ethan’s attempts to keep his mission on track. With the help of his good friends and technical wizards, Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames), Ethan tries to stay one step ahead of the entity who has a ghost from Ethan’s past called Gabriel (Esai Morales) working on its behalf. The entity will stop at nothing to achieve its purpose, creating chaos and confusion for humanity and bringing the world to the brink of war. Will Ethan and his team find both parts of the key and keep them from Gabriel or will the digital parasite infect all of cyberspace and allow one man to wield absolute power?

Themes

Loss of identity; world domination; the perils of artificial intelligence; violence as a means to solve conflict; death of loved ones

Violence

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has some violence. For example:

A submarine fires torpedoes at a threat that isn’t there. The deployed torpedoes hit the sub itself, causing a massive explosion, lots of destruction and the loss of human life. Numerous dead bodies are seen floating under the ice.
Ilsa is tracked by bounty hunters who attempt to kill her.
Bounty hunters shoot at Ethan, who shoots back, killing many in the process.
Isla shoots the bounty hunters and looks as if she is killed by them, but this later proves to be false.
Ethan deploys a strange gas bomb in a crowded room, rendering everyone, but one man, unconscious.
A man is shot with a tranquilizer.
A man is shot and killed in an airport lounge.
Grace steals a police car and smashes into the bounty hunters chasing her. She damages other cars and private property as she tries to escape and outrun them.
A motorcycle crashes into people and a man’s head is smashed through a window.
A character kicks a man in the head and steals an SUV, which is then driven into, over and through numerous things.
A small car crashes into a building and nearly crashes into a woman pushing a baby carriage down some steps during a high-speed chase through Rome.
Ethan is nearly hit and killed by a train as the car he is trapped in is stuck on the tracks.
Ethan punches a man in the face.
Grace fights off a couple of men, punching, shoving, hitting and kicking them.
Two characters attack Ethan in a narrow alleyway, bashing him with a bar as he tries to escape. Eventually he overpowers them both, leaving one unconscious and incapacitating but sparing the life of the other.
Grace tries to stab Gabriel but she is knocked unconscious during their struggle.
A character tries to strangle Ethan with her thighs but Ethan knocks her out, smashing her against a wall.
Ilsa fights Gabriel with a sword. They slash at each other but in the end Gabriel drives a knife through Ilsa’s chest.
Gabriel hits a man in the face with a shovel and throws him off a train. He then hits another man in the face with the shovel and hangs him by the neck over a pile of coal.
Grace shoots a character.
Gabriel slices through a man’s neck and a man shoots at Grace.
A character fights Gabriel and gets stabbed in the stomach.
Ethan blasts through the train window with his parachute and knocks out a couple of men.
Gabriel tries to get Ethan off the train, stabbing at him with a knife as they cling to the side and fighting him on the roof as they try not to get knocked off by overhead signals or tunnel entrances.
Gabriel causes a bridge to explode just as the train is approaching. Numerous carriages plummet into a ravine.
Ethan and Grace are nearly crushed by falling debris as they try to climb their way up the carriages.

Sexual references

There are no sexual references in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

There’s no substance use in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Nudity and sexual activity

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has some nudity and sexual activity. For example, some dancers (both male and female) wear skimpy bikinis as they dance on podiums at a party.

Product placement

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has some product placement. For example, a Fiat Car is used and its logo clearly displayed.

Coarse language

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has some coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is an action adventure and the seventh film in the Mission: Impossible series. Featuring an excellent cast, hair-raising stunts and a fast-paced plot, the film is best suited to older teen and mature audiences, particularly fans of the of the Mission: Impossible franchise.

The main messages from Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One are that our lives are equal to the sum of our choices; and that we cannot escape our pasts but that we have a chance to control our futures.

Values in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One that you could reinforce with your children are courage, integrity, loyalty, helpfulness and mercy.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the real-life consequences of things like these:

Trusting what you hear and see online.
Using violence or crime to get what you want.
Taking unnecessary risks.
Changing who you are to suit someone else.