Review: Mission Impossible: Fallout

After the capture of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his cohorts Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) find themselves in a pickle when a McGuffin falls into evildoer hands. Now Ethan and co must join forces with CIA man Henry Cavill to right the wrongs before things go nuclear levels of bad. Rebecca Ferguson returns as former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, whilst Vanessa Kirby plays a blonde arms broker nicknamed The White Widow. Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett play the requisite IMF and CIA suits.

The “Mission Impossible” film series started out pretty horribly, but has delivered quality entertainment since the underrated “Mission Impossible III”. Personally, I think the series peaked with the next entry “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”, but this 2018 action-thriller from writer-director Christopher McQuarrie is still worthy of a recommendation. Make that a rather soft recommendation, though. I’d probably place it as the weakest in the series since the terrible “Mi2”, but given the quality of “III”, “Ghost Protocol” and “Rogue Nation”, that’s not much of a criticism here. I won’t deny that I was a bit disappointed given how good the two previous films were in particular (not to mention the over-hype this was sold on), and at first it’s a bit talky and dull. However, it gets better as it moves along and the only real flaw for me is that the film features the most unconvincingly concealed ‘surprise’ bad guy in cinematic history. The actor in question is terrific in the role, so it’s a shame about that. I picked it from the very beginning, I’m afraid.

Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is as unflappable in dangerous situations as ever, with Simon Pegg’s Benji…whatever the opposite of that is. Cruise is crazy, and not just for couch-jumping. We all know he got injured performing one of his own stunts in the film, but there’s other ridiculously impressive bits of action movie stunt work on show, too. You can’t tell if it’s really Cruise doing the insane skydiving scene, but given his reputation it’s quite possible he did. However – and this is what always bugs me about Cruise doing his own stunts – If you can’t tell it’s him yet you know he has a reputation for doing his own stunts…perhaps he doesn’t actually need to so often?  

I said that the film is talky and dull to start with, but after 50 minutes it really does spring to life with some nifty action throughout. We also get some interesting character dynamics between the characters played by Cruise and Cavill, as well as Cruise and a returning Rebecca Ferguson. In fact, Cruise really does have a knack for working well with his leading ladies throughout his career, and it’s on display here with one exception to be talked about in a minute. Although you can see it coming a mile away and the trailers spoiled it, there’s an absolutely heartbreaking plot development late in the film. So all that stuff is all good, and despite barely being in this film, creepy Sean Harris is better here than he was in the previous film. That does bring up the sore point that so many actors here are wasted in minor or two-dimensional parts (at best). Ving Rhames knows his character inside and out here, I just think he has presence and talent better served elsewhere in larger roles (Go watch the late John Singleton’s underrated “Rosewood” if you’ve not seen it. Rhames is incredible in it). Wes Bentley, Angela Bassett, and a solid Alec Baldwin all go to waste in minor roles beneath their talents. Meanwhile, the lone poor performance among the women here is Vanessa Kirby, a distractingly bad actress in a fairly important role. The music score by Lorne Balfe (“Ironclad”, “Geostorm”) is rock-solid stuff, as one would expect for this franchise.

It’s a real shame this one starts so slowly and dull, because despite its transparency this one’s a cracker once it gets going with the action. A bit of a letdown, but highly watchable at least.

Rating: B-