After a complicated chase across a number of different countries, the climatic scenes of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 take place on board a train, where Grace (Hayley Atwell) is tasked with disguising herself as the White Widow/Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) using one of the iconic Mission: Impossible masks.

Using this disguise, Grace must stop the sale of the remaining half of the key that unlocks the Entity. It turns out that the person who the White Widow had been planning to sell the key to was none other than IMF director Eugene Kittridge, but after the sale appears to go through Grace pickpockets the key and flees – although once Kittridge realises what is going on he sends his henchmen Jasper and Degas after her.

Just as it looks like Grace is done for, she is miraculously saved when Ethan Hunt parachutes through the window of the train (he had to resort to skydiving off a cliff using a motorbike after his previous plan of disguising himself as the White Widow’s brother was called off when the IMF’s mask machine malfunctioned).

Meanwhile, villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) is also on board the train and has already killed Denlinger (Cary Elwes) and attacked his former colleague Paris (Pom Klementieff), and now has his sights set firmly on getting the keys.

He is initially successful in this mission but is chased onto the roof of the train by Ethan, and although Gabriel appears to escape with the key by timing a jump perfectly to land on a truck carrying a crash mat, it soon emerges that Ethan had sneakily pickpocketed it from him.

So Ethan now has the key but the danger is far from over – and Grace is frantically trying to find a way to bring the train to a halt before it reaches the bridge ahead that Gabriel has detonated.

Although she can’t stop it, she instead comes up with another solution – detaching the empty front carriage so that it falls while she and Ethan desperately try to reach safety. It briefly looks like they won’t make it, but who should step in to save them but Paris, who is grateful that Ethan spared her life during an earlier scene in Venice, Italy.

Still gravely wounded, Paris whispers the words Sevastopol to Ethan, who realises its significance imminently: the thing that the key unlocks is on board the sunk submarine bearing that name.

Meanwhile, Grace finds Kittridge and informs him of her choice: she would like to sign up for the IMF.

How does it set up Dead Reckoning Part 2?

YouTube/Paramount Pictures UK

And so the stage is set for Dead Reckoning Part 2 – Ethan, Grace, Luther and Benji will now race against time to unlock the powers of The Entity before it is too late.

It also appears as those Grace will be a fully-fledged member of the IMF, replacing the late Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) in the lineup of Ethan’s allies.

Of course, all of them will be competing with Gabriel to have control of The Entity. However, knowing that some in the US intelligence community were working to obtain the AI for their own devices, who can Ethan trust?

Read More

• Meet the cast of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1
• Mission: Impossible’s Simon Pegg would “love” a Benji and Ilsa spin-off
• Mission: Impossible’s Hayley Atwell on what surprised her about Tom Cruise

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.

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