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Mission: Impossible – Fallout Movie Review

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a 2018 spy action film directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill. It’s such an exhilarating, crazy and stupendous entry.

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“How many times has Hunt’s government betrayed him,

disavowed him, cast him aside?

How long before a man like that has had enough?“

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Ethan Hunt must track down stolen plutonium and a dangerous agent leading to many dangerous situations. The plot continues to be pretty thin as is the usual with spy flicks, but I personally found this movie more story-driven than the previous entries which doesn’t say a lot, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Ethan Hunt is more vulnerable and tired here than usual and you can see his age and suffering which was interesting along with his ex-girlfriend and all those scenes were definitely moving. But, this ended up being a giant missed opportunity to make a statement about the dangers of being in the spy business. The movie definitely has some interesting themes, but it unfortunately left them all unexplored in favor of once again excessive, non-stop action.

Tom Cruise continues to be the driving force of this entire franchise and even more so in this installment than before. That’s because he did most of his character’s stunts on his own instead of employing a stunt double and that led to such an admirably authentic action movie. His crazy dedication where he risks his own life for a movie paid off significantly and made this movie unforgettable in its genre. He truly is a great action star.

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Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust is ridiculously underutilized, but she still kicked some major ass in a couple of fantastic sequences. Ving Rhames is a wonderful soul here, Sean Harris plays a solid villain and Simon Pegg’s Benji continues to be such a great, endearing comic relief in this series. I loved how this movie is very much a team film in spite of Cruise’s obvious intentions to steal the show.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout most definitely has overwhelming action and a ridiculous all-out approach when it comes to the danger and tension. Hollywood fails to understand that it’s better to have a couple of highly dangerous and extremely intense situations than to have the whole movie be like that. This movie made the same mistake and thus its impact was seriously blunted because of that.

But still there is no denying the power of the action sequences here. It is one of the best action films recently because the action is extremely well crafted, utilized and always exhilarating and highly entertaining to watch. The stunts are fantastic and clearly there are some amazing standouts to be had here including the helicopter chase which is simply awesome, the Benji and Elsa/Solomon Lane fight is phenomenal, Hunt’s running on rooftops steals the show and in my opinion the motorcycle chase is the highlight of the film. I personally dislike such scenes, but this one is so meticulously crafted and hugely entertaining that I loved every second of it.

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The tech is thankfully reduced in Fallout in favor of some old-school spy action. The movie definitely has many soon to be iconic set pieces and brilliantly choreographed fight sequences, but it also has amazing cinematography which makes use of its glorious city settings so well with Paris definitely being the standout. I also found the score phenomenal and pleasantly old-fashioned. The humor’s also pretty solid, though only rarely present.

Despite overwhelming dangerous situations and a clear lack of strong themes with a couple of unfortunately missed opportunities in its plot, Mission: Impossible – Fallout still continues the upward quality trajectory for this franchise thanks to Tom Cruise’s crazy dedicated stunt work and Henry Cavill’s fantastic addition. It is an excessive action flick, but it’s immensely entertaining and exhilarating to watch thanks to brilliantly executed action sequences through and through, a great albeit overly loud score and amazing cinematography which makes use of its great cities so well with Paris being the definite highlight. The standout scenes are the helicopter chase, all hand-to-hand combat parts and of course that scene-stealing motorcycle chase.

My Rating – 4