[8]
The sixth Mission: Impossible movie takes everything that was great about the previous entry and lifts it to even greater heights. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, as does the series’ terrific ensemble of supporting talent, including Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Alec Baldwin. Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie returns, too, ratcheting up the action, suspense, and humor to a film that’s not only the best Mission: Impossible movie, but more exotic and exciting than most James Bond movies.
Fallout picks up where Rogue Nation left off, with Ethan and his elite spy team traveling from London to Paris to Kashmir, trying to stop plutonium from falling into the hands of The Syndicate, the secret organization introduced in Rogue Nation. Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, Blood Creek) joins the team as a brash American agent whose tactics are less elegant than Ethan’s. The team also entangles with the imprisoned villain from the previous film (Sean Harris), and a slinky broker of nuclear assets (Vanessa Kirby). Rebecca Ferguson continues to play a neo-femme fatale — someone Ethan loves, but still can’t fully trust. And she’s not the only character with duplicitous or potentially devious aims. This is the most twisty-turny Mission: Impossible of them all.
There are many films like Mission: Impossible — spy movies, globetrotting action flicks — and it’s hard to reinvent this formula. I thought I’d seen it all. But McQuarrie, Cruise, and team deliver sophisticated, protracted action sequences like I’ve never seen. Henry Cavill’s acting is stiff compared to everyone else’s, but he starts to find his stride in the second half of the film. This is a mightily entertaining movie that moves like lightning and climaxes in the most thrilling third act of the franchise. And it’s held together by characters I’ve grown to enjoy over a number of films. I could take or leave the first four Mission: Impossible movies, but the fifth (Rogue Nation) and this sixth one are a breed apart — and recommended.
With Angela Bassett, Michelle Monaghan, and Wes Bentley.