Review of Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) by Gary D — 01 Aug 2018

When it comes to action movies, Tom Cruise has no equal. Tom's commitment to creating action films that give the audience their money's has reached almost ridiculous levels with Fallout. To fall back on the old cliches, this is a true white-knuckle, breath-holding, heart-pounding action adventure that is excellently paced and perfectly executed. The only thing more pleasing than the incredible action is the fact that this is probably the best story of the franchise, leveraging not just Ethan's history, but that of the team that he's assembled and evolved through the previous 5 films, into a far more multi-faceted character, facing challenges which are personal, global, complex yet still straight-forward.. or at least as complex as you can really get in an action film.

Most people know by now just how seriously Cruise takes his action; spending months honing new skills so he can do as many of his own stunts as possible, and doing as many stunts as possible in camera. He clearly expects, demands, and inspires the same level of excellence from everyone who works on his films, and Fallout may be the most extreme example of this nexus of passion, talent, expectation and execution.

Now as far as stories go, Fallout doesn't really do anything you haven't seen in an MI film before. The film is full of exhilarating chase sequences with cars, motorcycles, boats, helicopters and of course, Tome Cruise Running. The story follows the familiar territory of the world in peril and the only thing standing in the way of its destruction is Ethan Hunt and his team, who of course must at some point go it alone as again, his agency turns its back on him. You'd think that this basic plot structure would get old and stale, but in fact, each film seems to refine and improve on this basic structure in a way that not only remains fresh and entertaining, but when you're in the midst of it and you know that certain basic things are going to happen/have to happen, you (for the most part) have typically have very little idea where they're going to come form specifically, Equally as impressive is that even though you can never see more than one step ahead, the story while complex, is never incomprehensible,.you are always given enough to understand what is happening, what's at stake at any given moment, and then it once all the strands are in place for the final showdown, they still the conclusion remains tense and with enough risk to keep you deeply engaged throughout. I was truly impressed at how after six films, they've managed to make each film better than the last (with the exception of MI2, sorry, that is the dog of this franchise) and MI6 seems almost impossible to top in my opinion.

Fallout is the definition of a big-budget action film.