Mission: Impossible has gone the way of The Fast and the Furious franchise. The movies have gotten better as they’ve gone along, and in part, because they’ve embraced the crazy. Fallout, the latest one, has Tom Cruise drinking that ageless potion doing insane activities while a convoluted who’s scheming who plot is ongoing underneath the surface. In amazing cities. On the side of cliffs. With Nuclear weapons. See what I mean?
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), due to a tough choice, loses 3 sets of plutonium to the Syndicate, who would like to use it to create 3 nuclear bombs. Hunt, with the support of his boss in the IMF (Alec Baldwin), Hunt takes his teammates Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) to Paris, where they can start tracking down the plutonium. Along for the ride is Walker (Henry Cavill), who works for the CIA and is making sure the IMF isn’t up to anything nefarious. The one wild card here is Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) from Rogue Nation, who’s involved in the story deeper than Ethan thinks.
Tom Cruise, deservedly so, deserves great credit for his willingness to go balls deep into any situation presented to him in these Mission: Impossible films. In the past, I’ve criticized the filmmakers for their execution in these scenarios, making Cruise’s feats (climbing the Burj Khalifa, for example) sound impressive on paper but not looking cinematic for the audience to understand how awesome it is. That is NOT a problem here. Motorcycle chases and crashes in Paris! Cliffhanger homages!! Full speed running across the Thames!!! Climbing into and piloting a helicopter in midair!!!! These scenes allow the filmmakers to get tracking shots that zoom out to amazing depth to give Cruise’s fan service the proper canvas they deserve. When it comes to the hand to hand combat, it’s good to see Cruise still hold his own against younger, burlier talent like Cavill. However, Rebecca Ferguson is enigmatic and badass enough to more than hold her own when she’s given her own side plot in the nuclear bomb disarmament, and her involvement gives the franchise much needed femininity and diversity that allows the convoluted story time to develop.
Not gonna lie, even with that extra long running time, I would need at least a month and a high level government operative to explain to me all the machinations of this story, some of which look cool, but are stupid. Why go to the trouble of creating a mask fakeout of a news anchor if all you need is a guy to unlock his phone? It’s clear your technology is amazing, you’d think IMF would have an answer for phone passwords…guess not? When we get to Paris, there are levels of double, triple, and quadruple crossing that are certainly fun, but don’t really make logical sense I’m pretty sure. At least writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (the Usual Suspects guy) has a common theme in there for the characters to play: are you looking out for yourself, or the needs of the many? This thread masks the fact that this Mission: Impossible is doing the SAME twofer story it always does (Ethan goes rogue, government questions him, Ethan figures it out, government forgives him), but proves simple and powerful enough to carry just enough emotional weight for us to care.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout will probably be the best blockbuster you’ll see this summer. It’s a wild ride of fun action, some humor, and Tom Cruise being a bonafide movie star. And like Ralph Wiggum, you’ll spend a lot of your time trying to pinpoint the exact moment he broke his ankle to give you what you want. Thanks sir! Enjoy learning to pilot a spaceship for your next mission….