“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” the latest installment in the blockbuster Mission: Impossible franchise, follows Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his ragtag family of spies as they face old and new enemies in a race to prevent a global catastrophe.

Cruise’s voracious appetite for life-threatening stunts and thrill rides intended for the biggest screen possible continues with “Dead Reckoning.” The movie manages to load up on enough spy intrigue and pulse-pounding action to get a viewer’s head spinning for nearly three hours.

The story does make the odd choice to hang its emotional component on Ethan’s relationship with Gabriel (Esai Morales), a villain who’s apparently responsible for Ethan’s forced involvement with the Impossible Mission Force spy agency. Throughout the film, Gabriel delights in tormenting Ethan with his failures and weaknesses while manipulating him to do his bidding.

However, Gabriel only acts independently once in a flashback before he openly works as a puppet for the true threat of the film. This plot line feels underwhelming, as the movie sells the character as an allegedly terrifying figure just for him to ultimately work as a lackey for the rest of the movie. Morales brings a coolly menacing presence to the role, which often makes up for other parts of the story that act as machinations to push Ethan into confrontation with Gabriel and other adversaries. Since the emotional core relies on this new, weakly defined character, the machinations feel more like a justification to move from location to location for the sake of action rather than an affecting emotional experience.

It’s a good thing, then, that this installment serves audiences classic “Mission: Impossible” shenanigans that never fail to entertain. The plot mechanics may feel slightly more emotionally cold than preferred, but they run like clockwork during extended sequences of double-crossing and clever one-upmanship. The sequencing harkens back to the first film’s focus on the confusion that follows the convoluted lives of spies over jaw-dropping stunts.

The stunts themselves stand out as some of the most impactful in the series, with a show-stopping car chase through Rome offering numerous gorgeous shots of real cars smashing into everything in sight, satisfying the urge to see authentic chaos in an action sequence. Even during the computer-generated imaging-heavy climax set on a train, (which directly alludes to the climax of the original “Mission: Impossible”) cleanly filmed skirmishes and confrontations emphasize the quality choreography and relentless energy of the action, rather than obscuring it with excessive cuts and sloppy cinematography.

As the first part of a two-part story, “Dead Reckoning” is functionally a build-up to the conclusion of the franchise, but it does a heroic job making that build-up go down smoothly, delivering enough spy minutiae and high-octane thrills to entertain while slowly unwinding the plot bit by bit. It’s a great experience with an excited audience on a big screen, so that’s the optimal condition to watch it in theaters this July.

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