Impossible Coincidence: How Tom Cruise's New Blockbuster Uncannily Echoes Real Life

Given that Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is the seventh instalment in the action movie franchise, fans may be forgiven for feeling a creeping sense of familiarity at theatres this weekend

- Steve Rose

But it's not just Tom Cruise hurling himself out moving vehicles that will trigger the deja vu. The plot of the film features eerily similar echoes to tensions and tragedies that have made up much of the real-world news agenda in recent months.

In what has been described as accidental topicality, Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt, takes on a familiar villain in the form of an AI computer program gone rogue, and in the movie's opening scene, a Russian nuclear submarine meets a grim fate another incidence of uncanny timing, given the Titan submersible tragedy last month.

Military powers around the world quickly realise that the all-powerful AI, known as "the Entity", can break into any secure facility, fake or steal human identities, manipulate digital reality and generally cause chaos without leaving a trace - it's the perfect spy. It is also far smarter than humans; our weapons are useless against it.