Movie Review: "Mission: Impossible—Fallout" Is the Perfect "M: I" Sequel

The Mission: Impossible franchise is peaking, reaching its highest highs (and breakiest ankle breaks) to date with Fallout.

Jeremy Renner broke both arms while making Tag. Ike Barinholtz fractured his neck during the shoot for Blockers. And Tom Cruise liquified his ankle in a stunt for Mission: Impossible—Fallout.

Does knowledge of a behind-the-scenes sacrifice improve our enjoyment of any given film?

Well, to answer for each of the examples above: 'no', 'no' and am I bad person if I say 'kinda'?

You can actually see the moment in which Cruise, as the never-say-die secret agent Ethan Hunt, attempts a running jump across two buildings and collides with the ledge, only to scramble up and hobble off at half-speed. Apparently, that’s how the stunt was always meant to play out, though I’m sure the studio’s insurers had hoped Cruise’s bones would’ve remained unsplintered by the act. (Production on Fallout was delayed eight weeks by his injury, yet the release date never moved.)

It’s the culmination of Cruise’s devotion to insane stunts for the franchise, which has included a Burj Khalifa spiderwalk and a strapped-to-a-plane takeoff. At age 56, his mortality is injecting a darkly comic thrill into proceedings, and he knows it. Late in the picture, an exhausted Hunt, in traction, asks his colleagues to stop joking because it hurts too much to laugh. The rest of us in the audience are similarly winded, but mostly just from the nerve-jangling 147 minutes that preceded.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, picking up from 2015’s Rogue Nation, delivers the sixth Mission: Impossible overall, and can now boast the best instalment to date. It’s impeccably paced, with action sequences that elicit gasps and cackles of 'are we really doing this?' delight. And it’s anchored by Cruise in his exasperated and desperate mode, which, we keep noting, is the Ideal Cruise.

That’s what makes this franchise and its stunts so enticing. To watch Mission: Impossible is to see Cruise (and countless stuntmen and women) pushed to the point of delirium, yet never flagging and always capable. Cruise doesn’t stop and neither does this bloody movie.

To outline the twisty narrative in a few sentences would be an exercise in hubris worse than Cruise’s death-defying stunts. Nonetheless, this time around, Hunt must go undercover as the anarchist 'John Lark' to prevent the firing of three nuclear devices. Hoping to be pointed towards the location of the bombs, he tells the enemy he wants to see the old-world order dismantled. In reply, they ask him to bust Hunt's nemesis Soloman Lane (Sean Harris) out of custody, and hand over beguiling double agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who stole the last feature from under Cruise’s (shattered) feet, and does so again here.

Of course, that’s an absurdly reductive synopsis for a flick that delights in staying three (unhobbled) steps ahead of the audience. There are so many double, triple and quadruple crosses, you’re liable to go cross-eyed, and each betrayal is delivered with a cheeky grin befitting the series’ sense of humour. (It’s telling that the recurring punchlines are the phrases "I’m sorry" and "I’m working on it".) Though the series’ longest-running characters—like Simon Pegg’s Benji and Ving Rhames’ Luther, fellow agents of Hunt’s—are trustworthy totems, suspicious newcomers Henry Cavill (as CIA enforcer Walker) and Vanessa Kirby (as the frisky plutonium broker White Widow), plus the ever-inscrutable Ilsa, keep our heads spinning. It’s dizzy-making in the dreamiest way.

The M: I saga has been cycling between directorial styles for two decades, beginning with the idiosyncratic and highly-stylised Brian De Palma and John Woo efforts before coasting with the playful J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird reboots. If Rogue Nation felt workmanlike, Fallout reveals the full scope of McQuarrie’s vision: fusing shadowy film noir storytelling and visuals with escalating adventure set-pieces. As difficult feats go, this one ranks just above 'clearing a two-building jump with ankle completely intact'. And he makes it.

In many ways, it’s the first true Mission: Impossible sequel, distinctly carrying on threads from the past three entries, and paying homage to famous scenes from its predecessors, like the infamous elevator death of M: I 1, the rock-climbing intro of M: I 2 and the sprinting sequences of literally all of them. Fallout ties up loose ends and dispatches some legacy characters with finality, while clearing a path for even more instalments down the road. Thank God, because I’m not ready for them to wrap it up yet.

Fallout is the perfect Mission: Impossible sequel; so good it makes knees wobble and ankles heal.

4.5/5

In cinemas 2 August. Rated M for action violence and coarse language.

Header Image: Paramount Pictures