In the 27 years since Tom Cruise first dangled from the ceiling of a Langley vault, the Mission: Impossible franchise has become the standard for impeccable action filmmaking, and incidentally, the last bastion for practical effects.

This is especially true with the Christopher McQuarrie-directed films, in which Cruise found the perfect collaborator willing to indulge in his daredevil instincts. But ever since McQuarrie’s takeover of eight years ago, Mission: Impossible has also become the “stunt franchise,” and lost one of its most interesting aspects: the wild variety that came with a different auteur (John Woo! Brian De Palma! Brad Bird!) putting an extremely unique (sometimes extremely divisive) spin on each movie. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One attempts to split the difference.

The first half of a two-part story, Dead Reckoning Part One is an exhilarating blockbuster, distilling pure spectacle into a two-and-a-half hour feature.

There's a beautiful simplicity to riding electric motorcycles: no droning engine, no hot exhaust to catch your leg, and no clutch or shifter to worry about. The best thing, though, is the serenity. While I love the sound of a screaming sportbike or snarling cruiser, I've come to really appreciate the silence of electric motorcycles.

Or, at least, I thought I had. I didn't realize just how quiet an electric motorcycle could be until I got a chance to ride the BK. This all-electric machine from Brooklyn-based Pave Motors is utterly, truly silent. While most electric motorcycles make a bit of a whir from the electric motor and some drone from the belt or chain, on the BK, with its hub motor integrated directly within the rear wheel, the only thing you hear is the wind.

The BK is an interesting proposition. While the market is flooded with power-assisted E-bikes like the Swissrider and RCA Explorer, and there's an increasing number of electric motorcycles to choose from made by companies like Zero Motorcycles and LiveWire, Pave Motors is splitting the difference with the BK, a $6,900 electric motorcycle with a top speed of 30 mph and a range of roughly 50 miles.