Toe to toe, Paramount’s Mission Impossible franchise remains the best action-thriller series in America. It is remarkable to think that the first film, spinning off from the popular television series and starring Tom Cruise, was released all the way back in 1996. Here we are, in 2023, watching the seventh. Not only has it proved remarkably resilient, it is generally agreed that it has been getting better as it has gone. Under the control of Cruise and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, Mission Impossible hit a creative peak with 2018’s Fallout. Five years later they have returned with a two-part follow up: Dead Reckoning hits cinemas this weekend, and its conclusion arrives next June. Usually I am not a fan of serialised cinema, but in this case I feel they have earned the right to try it out.

An artificial intelligence onboard a Russian submarine appears to catastrophically malfunction, sparking an international race to secure the world’s most powerful espionage tool. When it becomes clear that no individual nation can be trusted to own the technology, IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) once again goes rogue to keep it out of everybody’s hands.

To a pretty large extent, Dead Reckoning runs according to a formula. Control of the AI – known as “the entity” – depends on securing two halves of an electronic key. This leads inevitably to a series of action and chase set pieces around the world as each half of the key is traded back and forth between heroes and villains. In essence, there’s little wrong with the formula, so long as the set pieces stand out from previous iterations. It is here that Dead Reckoning wobbles a little. There is a sense of earlier films peeking out from behind the cracks, whether during a lengthy Rome car chase or a climactic train sequence that echoes all the way back to the 1996 original. It all remains hugely enjoyable to watch, but – as with Fast X earlier this year – you can see the franchise’s natural end point on the horizon.

Basing the story around a rogue AI is an inspired choice, and a highly prescient one since that decision was likely made years before our current cultural obsession with the technology. It also pushes the film towards a certain kind of science fiction. Thankfully it skirts the line rather than crosses it, and with an entire film to resolve the story I cannot imagine there are not going to be some unexpected wrinkles come next June.

The cast are, as always with this franchise, superb. Cruise remains innately watchable, as are the other returning cast members including Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson. One surprising returnee early into the film is Henry Czerny as CIA director Eugene Kittridge – who hasn’t appeared since the first movie. Among the new performers are industry veteran Esai Morales as the villain – a bit too zen-like and smug to quite succeed – and Guardians of the Galaxy alumnus Pom Klementieff as an immensely entertaining and overly violent henchwoman.

Then there is also Hayley Atwell as the mononymous “Grace”, an international pickpocket in over her head and relying on Hunt to keep her alive. In isolation she is an interesting enough character, and Atwell delivers an appealing performance. When considered more fully, however, she tends to supplant Rebecca Ferguson’s character Ilsa Faust – who is both more watchable and more intriguing – and is yet another iteration of the ‘posh flirty thief’ stereotype that beleaguers modern pop culture.

It is interesting to see the same cliché turning up twice in a row in Hollywood action films. Last week’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny featured Phoebe Waller Bridge as a posh, well-spoken English woman with a penchant for banter and thievery. In recent years television’s Doctor Who went several years with prominent appearances by Alex Kingston’s River Song – once again almost the same character. What is more, this is not even Mission Impossible‘s first interaction with this stereotype: Thandiwe Newton played essentially the same part in M:I2 back in 2000. While I appreciate Atwell’s presence and acting, if she is indeed to become the new female lead over Ferguson, I cannot help but feel the series is trading down.

Let’s put that aside. Generally speaking, Dead Reckoning is a well-crafted espionage thriller with excellently staged action and stunts, enjoyable and familiar characters, and eye-popping international spectacle. Even if the Mission Impossible franchise has peaked, it is still the best American action-adventure you’re going to find.