Since the beginning, the Mission:
Impossible movies have always been a showcase for Tom Cruise doing
insane stunts for our amusement. And god bless the crazy little Scientology
monster for that. I’ve said many times that if he can die—and I’m not sure he
can—he’s going to die doing one of these movies, and I find a certain nobility
in people putting themselves in harm’s way to entertain me. The last few
chapters, however, has been a constant escalation in this regard as the franchise
frontman pushes further and further the bounds of sanity and insurance coverage
with each successive stunt. And Mission: Impossible—Fallout
takes things to a whole new stratosphere. Literally in one case.
We all remember him dangling off a plane and holding his
breath for six minutes last time out in Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation.
That’s all well and good, but it’s kind of kid stuff compared to what he did
for Fallout. Not only does he do most of his own stunts when
it comes to zipping around European cities at breakneck speed on a motorcycle, handle
the bulk of the fighting, and snap his own ankle leaping from roof to roof.
That’s not enough. He learned to fly a helicopter for a major action
centerpiece just so we can see it’s obviously him by himself during the shots. As
if that doesn’t obliterate the limits, he also jumped out of a plane 106 times
to film a HALO—high altitude, low opening—sequence. This includes multiple actual
HALO jumps, which means he jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at more than
25,000 feet with an oxygen mask and reached speeds of more than 200 mph.
Multiple times. Just to make us gawk. And it works.
I don’t mean to go on and on about Tom Cruise—though I do
maintain he’s the last true “movie star” we have left—but all of this
accomplishes something important for the film. It gives the action in
Fallout, and the other Mission:
Impossible movies, an edge, a sense of actual danger. We watch him
actually do these things. Though we know, rationally, he’s as safe as possible,
it’s still him doing all these insane things. When he barrels through Paris,
that’s him. Same when he dangles off a building or cliff. It sells the action
and gives it a visceral quality that so many action movies lack. Even when the
film employs digital effects, they use state-of-the-art technology that blends
seamlessly with the practical work. I’ve seen Fallout compared
to Mad Max: Fury Road, and while the action never quite hits
those ludicrous highs—I still have no clue how everyone didn’t die filming that—it’s
as close as anything has come, or probably will, for a long time.
As usual, and as it should be, the plot serves as a delivery
system for the action. The Impossible Mission Force of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise),
Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) is back at it,
trying to recover stolen plutonium from a self-stylized global apocalyptic
terrorist death cult called “The Apostles.” Tagging along, they have CIA agent/wet-work
specialist August Walker (Henry Cavill), former ally/love interest Ilsa Faust
(Rebecca Ferguson) pops up, and they once again tussle with international
baddie Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), who has an axe to grind with this particular
crew of espionage professionals.
Though it often nears jumbled territory, to the brink of coherence,
and it relies too heavily on preexisting franchise knowledge and character
work, the narrative does what it needs to do. If you’re familiar with these
movies at all, it’s easy to spot what’s coming. The betrayals happen in all the
expected places, as do the things-are-not-what-they-seem moments, the
face-peelings, the layer on top of layer of misdirection. Still, writer/director
Christopher McQuarrie’s script manages to keep things engaging and tense and
tricky between action spectacles, and though it’s tangled, it never bogs down.
The story-telling fireworks never cause the pace to flag and you rarely feel
the 147-minute run time.
Mission: Impossible—Fallout has everything
fans want. The action is top notch and a constant amplification of what came
before, like every scene resulted from McQuarrie daring Cruise to take things
one step further. Though they don’t bring anything new to the table, the
characters are engaging and there’s enough of an emotional connection it’s not
simply a pyrotechnic action spectacular. Fallout is brisk
and propulsive and blockbuster summertime popcorn entertainment at its peak. And
Tom Cruise didn’t die filming it, at least not that we’ve been told, so that
means we’ll probably get another one, which is good news. [Grade:
A]
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