Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Christopher McQuarrie’s 2023 film follows Ethan Hunt’s IMF team chasing both halves of a key that can control or destroy the Entity, a rogue AI, from Abu Dhabi airport through Rome and Venice to the Orient Express. McQuarrie said the motorcycle leap off a cliff was shot on the first day of filming, giving them time to work out why Ethan does it. ILM’s supervisors call the jump almost entirely practical, naming the digital work as painting out the ramp and replacing the bike’s suspension and tyres. The train reverses the balance: a ten-carriage digital train fills in where real carriages could not be used and mountains and a tunnel were added, though the falling locomotive is a prop train really driven off a cliff at England’s Darlton Quarry. Shooting was due to open with three weeks in Venice in February 2020 until Paramount changed plans over the coronavirus. Nominated for Sound and Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, it won neither. After the sequel dropped Part Two, this film reached Paramount+ in January 2024 without Part One. A good fit if you want the train-top fight, shot on Norway’s Rauma Railway, and a real locomotive crash on the biggest screen. Not for anyone expecting a closed story; what the key unlocks is left for the sequel.