By JASON GUYER
Tom Cruise still has it. Even at 56 years old, he is still an action star.
Back as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and joined by his IMF team, Hunt is forced to team up with CIA assassin August Walker (Henry Cavill) to stop the events of an enemy has set in motion.
Arms dealer John Lark is the suspected leader of a group of terrorists known as the Apostles. Lark and his group plan nuclear weapons on the three holiest places on earth, the Vatican, Jerusalem, and Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
When the IMF team fails to secure the weapons and they go missing, Ethan and his crew must find them as they find themselves in a desperate race against time.
“Mission Impossible: Fallot” is the sixth installment in the Mission Impossible franchise.
Fallout is also the third Mission Impossible film handled by Bad Robot, a J.J. Abrams production company.
Abrams directed “Mission Impossible III” and since either he has directed an installment or his production company has been involved in them, the Mission Impossible franchise has gotten better with every film.
“Mission Impossible: Fallout” is by far the best installment in the franchise, and it is not often you can say that about a sixth installment to a franchise.
Cruise as Ethan Hunt is at his best in “Mission Impossible: Fallot” and continues to prove he is an action star.
At his best in “Mission Impossible: Fallout,” Cruise hits cruise control.
He gives you everything you want from a Tom Cruise action film, especially moments of bad acting, good acting, and the patented Cruise overacting — all packed into two hours and 27 minutes of adrenaline-fueled spy candy.
Including scenes where the IMF team uses their number one spy trick, masks. A character using a mask and voice changer to turn completely into another character is the “Mission Impossible” franchise’s schtick.
“Mission Impossible: Fallout” is no different, and uses it in the best possible way since a sitting senator pulled off a mask to reveal he was Ethan Hunt in the first Mission Impossible.
Helping Ethan Hunt in his spy savviness is his IMF team. Returning as part of Ethan’s IMF team are Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. All three bring their own familiar dynamic to the group.
Throw in an added little treat towards the end of the film with a Michelle Monaghan appearance, and this IMF team is the best one yet.
New to the “Mission Impossible” franchise is Henry Cavill as August Walker.
Cavill, donning the mustache that ruined “Justice League,” is the love-to-hate character in “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”
Forcibly inserted into Hunt’s well-oiled IMF team, Cavill’s Walker is a constant disruption to the team. Possibly in an all too obvious way, however, Cavill offers the exact muscular and all too business-like corporate American CIA agent opposite to Hunt’s caring, often impulsive, and reactionary MI6 agent.
Cavill’s biggest downside is the same for every film he is in, his acting is stiff and monotoned and that is no different in “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”
He is best at playing a one-dimensional character like Walker, who is imposing in size, strength, and brute force, all of which is best expressed and seen in the bathroom fight scene in “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”
Fight scenes and action sequences are the high notes in “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”
Action sequences are why you go to see an action film, and they should be why you see “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”
From the aforementioned bathroom fight scene, to the epic helicopter scenes which at one point have Cruise’s Hunt falling out of a crashed and rolling helicopter, mid role — one of the finest, albeit subtle, moments in an action scene in years.
In its entirety, “Mission Impossible: Fallout” is the best action film in years, even bringing back one of the franchises best villians to expound upon that villians “Mission Impossible” lore.
Sean Harris as Solomon Lane is an epic Bond-esque villain. Harris’ voice alone carries an ominous tone, that slow, calm, melodic but scratchy and gruff voice is made for spy villain.
Lane’s villainous plan brings “Mission Impossible: Fallout” full circle, from Lane becoming the franchise’s greatest villain to his plan bringing back a character From “Mission Impossible III” and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.”
Spy films should always come full circle, either within themselves or within a franchise; it is one of the bigger defining attributes to a good spy story.
What you know and when you know it. Throw in the “what you thought you knew from the beginning is not true” moment, and you have a great spy film.
Perfect the action sequences in that same spy film, and you make the perfect spy film.
That perfect spy film is exactly what director Christopher McQuarrie has made with “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”
McQuarrie’s directing is near perfect, and Solomon Lane is arguably the perfect villain, but Cruise simply continues to cruise to action star perfection at 56.
IRATE SCORE: 4.5/5
Jason Guyer is an avid moviegoer and works in the Graphics Department at the Eagle Times. For questions or comments he can be emailed at [email protected].
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