Mission Impossible: Fallout should be looked at as the template for how action movies are created. This is everything you want in a pure action movie that is wrought with the same suspense, mystery, and comedic tones that you would expect from this top-of-the-line franchise. Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men) reprises his most recognizable character (people, Top Gun came out over 30 years ago…Maverick is great, Ethan Hunt is the identifiable Cruise character…at least for anyone younger than 35). I’ve spent a good part of the last two decades knocking Tom Cruise for his choice in roles, wishing he would return to the types of roles that earned him three Academy Award nominations between 1990-2000. And I honestly, at the time, though he was phoning it in for box office dollars. I understand an action flick here and there. I understand that action is the niche for various A-listers (Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone) but not Tom Cruise. He has more depth than these other actors, and I felt he was repeatedly resorting to variations of the same role (Jack Reacher, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow). But I was wrong. I’ve watched all of these movies, and while, yes, they are all action movies, he never phones it in. He actually might bring a more consistent intensity to his role than any other actor out there. And this was no exception. Although it is hard for us to see anyone else play Tony Stark/Iron Man than Robert Downey Jr., it would be challenging to see anyone besides Cruise play Ethan Hunt.

This sixth installment in the Mission Impossible franchise brings back the same director (Christopher McQuarrie –  The Way of the Gun, Jack Reacher) for the first time. And this is the first movie in the series that is really a sequel to one of its predecessors. The first five movies all stood independently of one another and, while this one does too, the man “bad guy” is the same for the first time. As its name would suggest, Fallout,  McQuarrie directed Rogue Nation, the franchise’s fifth installment and its best of the first five. Much like Rogue Nation, the film operates on the behalf that the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) can’t handle the job assigned. But unlike Rogue Nation, there is no disbandment of the organization. Rather, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), headed by Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett – What’s Love Got To Do With It?, Boyz n the Hood), believes the mission is beyond the ability of Hunt, Luther (Ving Rhames – Pulp Fiction, Dawn of the Dead), Benji (Simon Pegg – Shaun of the Dead, The World’s End), and their boss Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin – Beetlejuice, Prelude to a Kiss). Much of this is based on Hunt’s tendency to protect a friend even if it means that the cost is endangering millions. This is the premise for this chapter of the series. The IMF is Berlin, set to make with a group called The Apostles. The Apostles are the remaining members of the Syndicate…a terrorist group formed by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris – Prometheus, Trespass Against Us) from Rogue Nation. In one of the film’s opening sequences, the IMF is in Berlin with a trade meeting with the Apostles. They are trading three plutonium cores for an unspecified amount of money. Long story short, things go wrong, and a third party kills a number of The Apostles. This third party intends to steal the plutonium cores, and they grab Luther and put a gun to his head, forcing Ethan to decide between saving his friend’s life or keeping the case of the three plutonium cores out of the hands of terrorists. Ultimately, he chooses to save the life of Luther, and the case of plutonium cores is stolen. This calls into question his judgment by the CIA. The CIA doesn’t want someone leading a mission who has it in his core to protect a friend rather than hundreds, thousands, or millions of people. In the end, Hunley and Sloane agree to let the IMF continue its mission of tracking down the three plutonium cores, but not before Sloane adds a member of her team to Hundley’s, that in the form of a special agent named Walker (Henry Cavill – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) as a failsafe in case Ethan and his team fail…again.

The mission is simple…but not. I mean, it is, but many twists and turns occur along the way. And we would expect nothing else from this movie series. The Apostles are intent on creating chaos and ultimately destroying the world. However, they believe that suffering leads to peace and that it is time to unleash the pain. A recent one of their terrorist activities saw the group take credit for releasing an outbreak of smallpox in Kashmir. Their new plan is to receive the plutonium cores from a nuclear arms dealer known as The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby – Everest, Me Before You), who received the cores after the mission in Berlin went wrong, hand over the plutonium to a fundamentalist member of The Apostles named John Lark who then will then hand them over to weapons expert Nils Debruuk (Kristoffer Joner – The Revenant). He has built three portable nuclear weapons that are just waiting for the plutonium cores. But just like The Apostles were willing to do anything to Ethan and IMF to get the plutonium, they are set to do the same to the White Widow. What she thought was an exchange has turned into so much more.

The White Widow agrees to give Ethan’s team the plutonium in exchange for Solomon Lane. As a measure of good faith, The White Widow gives Ethan one of the plutonium cores. Unfortunately, without giving away any spoilers, the exchange of Lane for the two plutonium cores doesn’t go as planned. And the two plutonium cores end up in the wrong hands and are reunited with the nuclear weapons in Kashmir, where they are set to detonate if they are not dismantled in time. In the process, we are reacquainted with assassin Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson – Life, The Greatest Showman), who reprises her role from Rogue Nation, her mission from that story still needing its conclusion.

There are lots of plot twists here, and it isn’t easy to keep up with all of them. But none of that is important. The weapons are in the wrong hands, and Ethan has to stop them from detonating before a third of the world’s population is destroyed due to the explosions. In the meantime, we are entertained with extreme car chases, dangerous building jumping, helicopters, airplanes, mountain scaling hand to hand combat, and much, much more. The two-and-a-half-hour run time never feels long, and the movie never dulls. Each minute offers intricate storytelling and/or mesmerizing action. And there are the wry comedic insertions in this movie, both during the action scenes and outside of them, make the Mission Impossible movies what they are. The Mission Impossible movies are some of the smartest movies (not just action movies) that have ever been written. Everything is purposeful, and nothing ever feels out of place. And Cruise brings it as only Cruise can, continuing to do his own stunts. He even broke his ankle during one building jumping sequence yet continued to complete the scene before being taken to the hospital. The filming of the movie was halted for two months as a result of the broken ankle. McQuarrie’s storytelling AND direction, the acting, particularly that of Cruise, Rhames, Pegg, Ferguson, and Harris, the action sequences, the stunts, the visuals, the sound, and everything else results in Mission Impossible: Fallout not just being the best movie in this franchise, but one of the greatest action movies of all-time. It really is that good.

This is a must-see. If you have a chance, see Rogue Nation beforehand.

Plot 9/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 10/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 9.5/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
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