Do it for Pom!
Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at 5:00PM 
With its buzz and screen count curtailed by Barbenheimer, the latest Mission: Impossible movie ended its run as a box office failure. That fate is rather sad, mainly because Dead Reckoning Part One is one of the franchise's best entries, not to mention a much superior Tom Cruise project to the supposed cinema-saving smash hit that was last year's Top Gun: Maverick. Now that the movie's available on PVOD, it's the perfect time to catch it if you missed its theatrical window. I've previously written about the Ethan Hunt saga, from 1996 to now, going over the latest picture's bold anime-like tonalities where an action man faces against an evil God in the guise of AI unbound, its superb action scenes, and whatnot.
Yet, considering The Film Experience's readership, the best way to convince you to give the movie a chance might be an appeal to its bonafide actressexual cred. In other words, do it for Pom…
Though Dead Reckoning Part One is full of delicious genre performances to its gills, the best of the best is Pom Klementieff's take on a Bondian-esque henchwoman. She's Paris, a French assassin working for Gabriel, the AI Entity's human emissary and the story's default antagonist. We first encounter her in Rome, as Ethan evades the Entity's forces and IMF Agents alike, all while handcuffed to Hayley Atwell's pickpocketing Grace. The chase spans multiple vehicles and tonalities, heightening an action set piece into odd couple comedy hour, with Klementieff's Paris as a violent obstacle, hunting our heroes with such bloodlust the screen feels electric whenever she's on it. All of us should hope to one day love something as much as Paris loves to terrorize Roman drivers and pedestrians.
With little to no dialogue, Klementieff delineates the offbeat recklessness of her character, imbuing a figure that could have been anonymous with personality galore. Later, as she performs a vicious fight in the Venetian night, the actress' physical expressivity ups the ante, suggesting someone for whom killing is so fundamental that mercy proves a destabilizing force. The disruption is played subtly enough at first, slowly growing into an implosion cum betrayal, her rage redirected in an about-face that would have stumbled many a great thespian but feels natural in Klementieff's hands. Whether in closeup or action-heavy wide shot, she's always finding new avenues to explore a character type that, by design, must exist on the sidelines.
Such robust genre work is often discarded when cinephiles consider acting, but one shouldn't dismiss achievements like this just because they exist beyond the limits of prestige fare. Pom Klementieff turns a thankless role into her picture's highlight and, in the process, delivers one of the year's best performances.
Action, Mission Impossible, Pom Klementieff, streaming
Reader Comments (4)
She's quite good here. Though Pom Klementieff has fewer lines than she does in most Marvel films, I found her characterization here really spot and shows that she's quite good at this sort of genre fair. She really felt like an old-school 60s-70s henchman in the best way.
I also really enjoyed Vanessa Kirby's comedic turn. We get a lot of her having fun and being, at some key moments, quite silly. It's great to see her let loose in that way on screen.
I continue to be surprised this wasn't a hit. Maybe it needed to open 2-3 weeks before Barbenheimer?
So over half a billion worldwide BO (#8 film of the year thus far) is not a hit and a box office failure instead?
(It's #11 domestically, #6 outside the US.)
I love Pom. I love Hayley but... I can't. I hate Tom Cruise and I hope he dies doing one of his dumbass stunts.
Hayley was my MVP in that movie, but Pom is a close second. Every millisecond Pom was on screen, even if just standing in the back saying nothing, was perfection. Forging ahead... less Cruise, more ladies, please.