It is hard to believe that the "Mission: Impossible" film series starring Tom Cruise is now on its sixth film. Since I did not really like the first film back in 1996, and I only took interest on the fourth film "Ghost Protocol" (2011), with Cruise's spectacular stunts on the Burj Khalifa. The next film "Rogue Nation" (2015) had Cruise hanging on to dear life outside the door of a flying plane within the first scene. I cannot wait to see how they will up the excitement dial any more in this new one, which was also written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie like the last one.
"Fallout" is set a couple of years after "Rogue Nation." In his effort to rescue his colleague from certain death, Ethan Hunt lost possession of three plutonium cores to terrorists. The new CIA director Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) assigned agent August Walker to watch over Hunt as he got them back. Upon instruction from a liaison code-named White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), Hunt needed to extricate Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the same man Hunt sent to prison in the last film, from a police convoy in Paris and surrender him to her in exchange for the plutonium.
Tom Cruise is already 56 years old, more than 20 years after the first MI film, but he never lets up on his stunt work. For every M:I film, he challenges himself to top the danger level of what he had already done in the previous installment. He never used a stunt double before, and he is not about to do it now. This guy is a serious entertainer and would not dream of shortchanging his audience. Knowing he did all these fantastic practical stunts himself added to their impressive impact.
In "Fallout," Cruise had to do a high-altitude, low opening (HALO) skydive from an incredible 25,000 ft. He had to ride a motorcycle through the streets of Paris to escape chasing cops, at one point going against the flow of traffic around the Arc de Triomphe. He had to run and jump across rooftops in London to pursue his adversary, at one point even fracturing his ankle for real holding up the film shoot for four months. He had to climb up a rope to board a flying helicopter, then fly it himself around icy mountain ridges of Kashmir, at times even nosediving. These spectacularly-executed scenes were all incredibly breathtaking to behold on that big screen.
"Superman" star Henry Cavill was along for the ride this time as rival agent August Walker. He had his share of stunts and fights as well. That three-way fistfight with Cruise, Cavill and Liang Yang set inside a brightly-lit spotlessly-white Paris restroom was so painfully and brutally realistic. Cavill also had to do a cliff-face rock climb, which we already knew Cruise can handily do back in "M:I 2" (2000). He did confess that he was not allowed to do the HALO jump himself for safety issues, even if he wanted to.
The rest of the supporting cast had been in previous M:I films. Ving Rhames is expert computer hacker Luther Stickell, a character who had been helping Hunt since the first M:I. Simon Pegg is technical field agent Benji Dunn (first introduced in "M:I 3"), a bit more serious this time than his usual funny. Alec Baldwin is former CIA chief, now IMF secretary Alan Hunley, an adversarial character when introduced in M:I 5 who had a change of heart.
The lovely Rebecca Ferguson (who recently played Jenny Lind in "The Greatest Showman") is Ilsa Faust, a most fascinating double agent character in M:I 5 who now crosses paths with Hunt again. Michelle Monaghan played Julia Meade, a nurse whom Hunt married in M:I 3 and lost in M:I 4. The reunion between Ethan and Julia here gave this film an emotional depth absent from the other films in the series. Ilsa and Julia shared a quick little whispering moment which looked very interesting as to its significance (if any).
If I was going to rank my top three favorites among the M:I films, I would still pick "Ghost Protocol" (MY REVIEW) as the best one for me. Because of its more personal dramatic aspects for Ethan Hunt's character, "Fallout" just narrowly nudges out over "Rouge Nation" (MY REVIEW). 9/10.
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