Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning scores a low accuracy grade from an AI expert due to its AI villain, the Entity. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the latest installment in the long-running Mission: Impossible franchise sees Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt to face off against a rogue AI threat known as the Entity and its human emissary, Gabriel (Esai Morales). The film, which also stars Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ving Rhames, was big hit with critics, earning glowing reviews for its standout action and timely premise.

In a recent video for Insider, AI expert Sasha Luccioni analyzes scenes of the Entity in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, finding that the film misses the mark in several key ways. While the depiction of the Entity imitating Benji’s voice is accurate, though perhaps somewhat rudimentary, Luccioni takes issue with the film suggesting that AI can set its own goals and missions. An AI Entity targetting a satellite, for example, would only happen in real life if somebody specifically commanded the AI to do it. Check out Luccioni’s commentary and score for the film out of 10 below:

“AI can definitely knock out satellites if it’s being used by a human. So it’s kind of like a computer virus, right? Once you plant the virus, it can do all sorts of things. And, actually, AI is being used in hacking. It’s being used in cyberattacks. But once again, the agency doesn’t come from the AI, it comes from the person who’s going to choose the place to deploy it, or like the type of satellite to target.

“The voice cloning was spot on. That can definitely be done already right now. So essentially, how AI voice generation works, is that if you have enough audio of someone talking, it will learn the actual voice frequencies, the actual audio frequencies of someone’s voice and the way they talk. And, in this case, it really seemed like it was taking words that Benji already said and just shuffling them around or just playing them back without actually doing the modelling parts.

“I definitely laughed really hard when they started smashing all their equipment because the vast majority of AI models nowadays don’t actually run on your device, your laptop, your phones.

“ I give this clip a three [out of 10] because of the agency issue. So, AI is only a tool, and it can be used for good, it can be used for bad, but by itself, it’s not going to wake up and start hacking satellites.”

What The Entity’s Inaccuracy Means For Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

How Did The Tom Cruise Film Fare With Audiences?

AI is a hot topic today, both inside and outside Hollywood. There are very real fears about what the technology is already capable of and what it could become capable of in the near future. It makes sense, then, that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning would feature AI as the villain in the film. Obviously, though, McQuarrie and Cruise have had to deviate from reality in order to tell a compelling story.

Reviews for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning were generally very positive, with praise aimed primarily at the stunts and major action set pieces. Exaggerating what AI is capable of helps to facilitate these stunts and action sequences or enhance emotion. The Entity imitating Benji’s voice, for example, leads Ethan away from Isla Faust (Ferguson), resulting in her death, which is a powerful moment. The film currently enjoys a 96% critics’ score and 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, suggesting that most audiences either didn’t pick up on or weren’t bothered by the film’s exaggeration of AI capabilities.

Though the film fared well critically, Mission: Impossible 7 was a box office disappointment, grossing $567 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $291 million.

Our Take On The AI Inaccuracies In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

Why The Entity Not Being Realistic Isn’t A Big Deal

In film, it’s generally less important that things are realistic than that they feel realistic to audiences and adhere to the movie’s internal logic. The Entity makes sense and feels real within the heightened world of Mission: Impossible and it adheres to the internal logic of the story. It’s also unrealistic, for example, that Ethan’s team can make flawless masks and voice changers that allow a character to pass for someone else, but it feels plausible inside the world of the film.

One of the drawbacks of making the Entity the villain is that AI as a technology is rapidly advancing. Aspects of Dead Reckoning, such as the Entity emulating Benji’s voice, are already outdated, and this could create problems for the upcoming Mission: Impossible 8. Ultimately, though, the hit action franchise isn’t popular because it adheres to reality, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, despite its flaws, remains a stunning work of action filmmaking.