Recommends

Since we first met ethan hunt back in 1996, we've seen him chased by a helicopter down the channel tunnel, scale the exterior of Dubai's Burj Khalifa and take to the skies on the outside of an aircraft.

The stakes keep getting higher for the IMF's finest, whose six screen outings to date have grossed a colossal $3.5 billion at the worldwide box office. 

Audiences can't get enough of Tom Cruise's daredevil super-spy and his seemingly insatiable appetite for life-imperilling adventure.

It is no surprise, then, that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is one of the year's most keenly anticipated blockbusters, shaping up as it is to be both another thrill-a-minute escapade for Hunt's globe-trotting team of operatives and a jaw-dropping prelude to Dead Reckoning Part Two, scheduled to arrive in cinemas in 12 months. 

Filming two Missions back to back is a first for Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning writer-director who has been calling the shots on this all-action franchise since 2015's Rogue Nation.

Cruise last collaborated with McQuarrie on Top Gun: Maverick – the former was a co-writer and producer – a phenomenon that grossed £1.4 billion worldwide.

Both filmmakers are keenly aware that Dead Reckoning Part One needs to up the action ante on their last effort – witness Cruise performing a stunning motorbike-propelled BASE jump off a clifftop in Norway that's already been dubbed "the biggest stunt in cinema history". 

"If it's going to be a big two-part adventure, it's got to be epic," McQuarrie declared last year. "It's going to have to be the instalment that swallows the rest of the franchise whole." For all the excitement the series has given us over the years, however, it wouldn't amount to much if we weren't invested in its characters – an ever-expanding assortment of allies and adversaries that have become as much a part of the franchise's make-up as Cruise's indomitable hero and his nerve-shredding exploits.

Hunt wouldn't be Hunt, after all, if he didn't have the unflappable Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), tech wizard Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and the mysterious Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) in his corner.

Long-time fans of the series, meanwhile, will welcome the return of veteran antagonist Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), a slimy character they've not had the pleasure of disliking since Brian De Palma's series-initiating original. It's also been confirmed that Rolf Saxon will return as William Donloe, a CIA analyst from the first film, but we will have to wait until Dead Reckoning Part Two to see how the character, last seen exiled to a desolate Alaska station, fits into the scheme of things. 

Newcomers this time around include Marvel star Hayley Atwell, whose character Grace has been described (by McQuarrie) as a "destructive force of nature". "She's a joy to play," says the British actress, whose role saw her manacled to Cruise during a car chase in Rome and dangled off the back of a moving train. "She's mischievous, she's playful and she holds her own with Ethan."

"There's a kind of comic element to it, which we haven't seen as much of," Atwell continues. "It has a different tone to it, so you're in for a treat."

Ethan Hunt has been through a lot over the last 27 years, but we reckon he still has some surprises up his sleeve. Light the fuse!     Neil Smith

Pick up a copy of Picturehouse Recommends at a Picturehouse Cinema near you, or become a Member.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is in cinemas now — Book Now!