Mission Impossible: Fallout could be a template for creating action movies. This is everything you want in a pure action movie, offering the same suspense, mystery, and comedic tones you 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 (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 of roles, wishing he would return to the types of roles that earned him three Academy Award nominations between 1990-2000. And honestly, at the time, I thought he was phoning it in for box office dollars. I understand an action flick here and there.

I know 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, 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 they are all action movies, he never phones it in. He might bring a more consistent intensity to his role than any other actor. 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. This is the first movie in the series that is 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. However, unlike Rogue Nation, the organization has no disbandment. Instead, 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 the cost endangers millions. This is the premise for this chapter of the series. The IMF is in Berlin, set to make with 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 Luther’s life over attempting to recover the stolen case of plutonium cores.

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, 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, though many twists and turns occur. 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 suffering leads to peace, and 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. We reacquaint ourselves with assassin Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson – Life, The Greatest Showman), who reprises her role from Rogue Nation. However, her mission from that story still needs its conclusion.

There are many plot twists here, and keeping up with them can be challenging. But none of that is essential. 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 by extreme car chases, dangerous building jumping, helicopters, airplanes, mountain scaling, hand-to-hand combat, and much more. The two-and-a-half-hour run time never feels long, and the movie never dulls. Each minute offers intricate storytelling and mesmerizing action. 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 most imaginative movies (not just action movies) ever written.

Everything is purposeful, and nothing ever feels out of place. And Cruise brings it as only Cruise can, continuing to do his stunts. He even broke his ankle during one building jumping sequence yet continued to complete the scene before being taken to the hospital. Filming halted for two months due to a 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 the best movie in this franchise, but one of the greatest action movies of all-time. It is that good.

Mission Impossible: Fallout 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
95%

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