Mission: Impossible – Fallout” takes a lesson from the fictional rock band Spinal Tap, and the movie action gets ‘put up to 11’. That means the movie is a non-stop E-Ticket thrill ride for nearly the entire run time (over 2 hours). Yes, it does stop occasionally to explain this situation or go over the disastrous outcome if that other thing happens. The main focus is on the action sequences and fight sequences. All of the over-the-top action, piling even more and more onto the plot that will threaten to make it burst with adrenaline. There in the center of it all is Tom Cruise, making stuntmen everywhere proud…
“Mission: Impossible – Fallout” takes a couple of character from prior movies and also bring them into the action. But the main Impossible Mission Force is back together as in the past. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is the leader, and he also needs the talents of Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames). There is stolen Russian plutonium and Hunt blows a chance to buy it off the black market. He instead chooses to save the lives of his team members. IMF is called into action, as directed by the new IMF secretary Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin). But current CIA chief Sloane (Angela Bassett) will not allow IMF to operate on its own. She embeds a CIA asset named August Walker (Henry Cavill), and he is there to terminate the operation (and Hunt) if things go south.
So as soon as things could go wrong, they do… Hunt and Walker do a High Altitude (HALO) jump into a party held in Paris by White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). She is a black market operative who can obtain the missing plutonium – at a price. Hunt assumes the identity of a rogue operator who is part of a new terrorist group. White Widow buys the cover story that Hunt is the right guy. But the price is steep. Hunt and Walker must capture a police-held ex-British spy named Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). But there is another person interested in finding – and killing – Lane. That is Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who is a British MI-6 agent who went deep undercover into Lane’s group. She must eliminate Lane to prove her worth.
Hunt and his crew get Lane, and are almost killed by Ilsa. But there are deep moles and turncoats and double-crosses around every corner. Ethan Hunt finds that he can trust almost no one. They team travel to London, where they will exchange Lane for the black market plutonium. But the twists come hot and heavy, and soon they are left empty-handed. Hunt and his team, along with Ilsa, travel to where Solomon Lane might be going next – Kashmir. They trace him to a volunteer temporary hospital. Hunt finds out that Lane specifically chose this location – Hunt’s ex-wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) is there. They find that two of the nuclear cores have been constructed into bombs. There is a very complex way to defuse these two bombs, but only once the countdown has started. So will the team be able to find the bombs, and get them de-armed – before — FALLOUT?
Each Mission: Impossible has been a wild ride that relies a lot more on thrills than on a simple cohesive plot. But it always works out better than way. The more outrageous the premise, the more dire the outcome – it makes the M:I team come together and beat the odds. Odds that are Impossible, naturally. But always leading this pack is Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. His steely-eyed focus on an over-the-top goal makes everything more interesting.
Cruise has partnered with Christopher McQuarrie who has now become the only director to helm two M:I movies. Plus McQuarrie as this film’s only writer takes the story-line into treacherous places with treacherous people undermining Hunt’s Mission. But with many capable actors joining them (many going back for quite a few movies) – the results are spectacular. Sure, the overall details may not make perfect sense, but they propel the action forward, usually at breakneck speed.
Or perhaps it moves at break-ankle speed, referring back to the stunt that Cruise did over the London rooftops, where is landing was a little too rough. He suffered a few broken ones there, but he would not give up and – like this movie – there is nothing that will stop a Great Action Sequence!
