The sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, picks up after Rogue Nation, with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) surrounding himself with only the best for his next mission, should he choose to accept it. Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and the boss Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) all make returns to the team in this latest adventure. This movie even pays homage to missions of the past by bringing back the villainous Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) along with the icy MI6 spy Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who is there to complete a mission of her own.
The film jumps straight into the action, a terrorist group has managed to get their hands on plutonium and, as usual, can’t wait to use it to wreak havoc on the world. After all, “there cannot be a great peace without first a great suffering”. Fallout continues to play off of Hunt’s lack of compatibility with his American heads of government who continuously intervene, rejecting the balance that the IMF provides. This trope is presented to us in Erica Sloan (Angela Bassett), the newest CIA chief who forces Ethan to take her #1 assassin, August Walker (Henry Cavill), as his partner while they investigate the never-ceasing crimes of the Syndicate, a global terrorist cell made up of former spies from agencies around the globe. Walker and Hunt have fundamentally different ways of handling missions, being compared to a scalpel and a hammer, so while they have a few moments of understanding things quickly get heated when the chips fall and things start to go south.
The stunts are unlike anything we’ve seen Cruise do before; the 56-year-old actor continues to do his own stunts, breaking his own bones, risking life and limb each time he jumps up, to dazzle audiences in ways we didn’t think were possible. This movie is full of betrayal that will have you on the edge of your seat, car chases that will make you hold your breath, fistfights that will make you cringe, and a Mission: Impossible movie wouldn’t be complete without some form of an aerial pursuit with a killer backdrop (literally). It isn’t all action though, while Ethan’s personal life doesn’t make for a huge player in this film, director Christopher McQuarrie returns to the franchise delivering character moments that are incredibly satisfying to watch, showing characters “bonding over bomb defusion, or an expression of purest trust when faced with the highest stakes imaginable” (Empire), allows for us all to find moments of ourselves amidst the impossible stream of adrenaline.
At a little over 2 hours, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the longest but wildest ride of the Mission: Impossible franchise, building on characters ranging all the way back to the first film (I suggest re-watching it if it’s been a while) but touching on villains and political themes from more recent films as well. McQuarrie finds a way to weave together something from each Mission: Impossible film, proving that both Ethan Hunt and Tom Cruise are more than just a glorified stuntman. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to sit back, buckle up, and enjoy the ride because this movie will leave you reeling!
the people's critic 