Mission Impossible Fallout is an exhilarating, relentless, fast paced and action packed ride. This movie proves that against all odds this twenty some year old franchise only gets better as they continue to make them. Fallout may be the crowning achievement of the franchise, though 2011’s Ghost Protocol is right up there and 2015’s Rogue Nation not far behind. What makes Fallout such an exception Mission Impossible movie, and really, just an exceptional action movie? I think it boils down to 3 key factors: the plot, the characters and the set pieces.
The plot of Mission Impossible Fallout is relatively straightforward, but this serves as a strength in a movie of this variety. A group of rogue former agents from various countries around the world have stolen 3 nuclear devices that they can deploy anywhere in the world within 48 hours. This isn’t really anything new, but it succeeds in delivering high stakes and a ticking clock for Tom Cruises Ethan Hunt and his team. The plot really works like a swift river, where it drops you into it in the beginning, carries you through the twists and the turns and keeps up its pace and momentum all throughout the movie. It is a very fluid ride where Ethan Hunt and his team are continually improvising plans as new wrinkles to the mission arise, which helps lend to and maintain the sense of suspense and urgency. Throughout the movie, Ethan and his team often don’t have a concise plan for accomplishing their mission, instead there is a ragtag quality of figuring it out as they go, which really lends a human quality to the characters. You can’t always have a plan for every contingency and it is very refreshing to see these Mission Impossible movies embrace that sensibility and improvisational nature to the core.
The characters of Mission Impossible Fallout are the heart of the movie and why the audience becomes invested in the adventure. Ethan Hunt is the team leader and is uncompromising in his regard for human life. It is unacceptable to him to sacrifice even a single life in the course of saving millions. This happens a few times during the course of the movie when he saves a team member who is being held hostage by the enemies at the cost of losing the nuclear devices they are looking for, and again when he chooses to save a civilian police officer at the expense of blowing his cover while infiltrating a group of terrorists. He is also very improvisational when complications arise during missions, able to think on his feet. He is able to make difficult decisions as the conditions of the mission change, with a single minded determination to successfully complete the mission and to protect lives. Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell is Ethan’s oldest friend and longest running team member. He is the trusty man in the van and often serves to point out alternative perspectives to Ethan, as well as lending a sense of continuity to the series, being the only other team member to appear in all 6 movies. Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn serves not only as some comic relief, but also the audience’s way into the movie. Benji began his career in the IT department in Mission Impossible 3, but having passed his field tests, begins to join Ethan on missions from the 4th entry, Ghost Protocol, on. He is the stand in for the average person who gets to join the team on these incredible adventures, and it shows through his giddy enthusiasm, anxiety and show of a variety of emotions that the more seasoned agents suppress. Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust makes a welcome return from the 5th movie, Rogue Nation and rounds out this movie’s team very nicely. Ilsa really is Ethan’s equal in every way, riding motorcycles, hand to hand combat, firefights, dangerous stunts, she does it all. Ilsa and Ethan’s relationship is particularly interesting as once again they are seemingly pitted against each other by their agencies and circumstances, yet each shows great trust in each other. The team really does feel like a team that trusts each other implicitly to do each of their respective jobs and cover each other. The team dynamic is central to and really the core of Mission Impossible Fallout. Each team member has a pivotal role to play in completing their mission, a trend that began with Ghost Protocol and continues on in Rogue Nation and this movie.
The heroes aren’t the only characters in a movie that matter however, after all what good are the heroes without giving them something substantial to overcome? Sean Harris reprises his role as Solomon Lane, who is still incarcerated from his last outing in Rogue Nation. He is just as menacing this time around, with a more personal vendetta against Ethan. Lane is very threatening in a very subtle and real way, with his insights into Ethan’s character and motivation, he know which of his buttons to push and how to get under his skin. He is all the more menacing due to the quiet and contemplative nature of his threats. The other villain of Fallout is Henry Cavill’s August Walker, who is very much Ethan’s foil. He is brutal in both his disposition and his physicality, much taller and bigger than Ethan. Where Ethan is unwilling to sacrifice any lives in order to accomplish his mission and protect millions of people, Walker has almost no regard for any lives lost through the course of accomplishing his mission. In fact he thinks it is necessary in order to accomplish the greater peace he is striving to achieve. He is sneeringly cocky and views Hunt’s unwillingness to sacrifice lives in the course of duty as his greatest weakness. Though these two villains have different end goals in mind, their objectives are for the most part intertwined and see fit to team up to take on Hunt and his team, and present a formidable challenge to them.
The set pieces in the Mission Impossible movies are really their trademark, and Fallout is no different. The action in the movie is all practical and in camera, which is becoming increasingly rare in the modern age of film making, where computer generated action dominates the silver screen. That’s not to put down all computer generated action in movies, mind you, there are a lot of movies out there that create breathtaking scenes with the use of CGI. But Tom Cruise’s dedication to doing all of his own death defying stunts in these movies really elevate these movies to their own rarefied air. The first set piece in fallout is a HALO jump, or a high altitude low opening jump. The skydiver jumps from an altitude where they need an oxygen mask because the air pressure is so low, and Cruise’s mask is lit from the inside, so we are able to see it is really him performing the stunt. From there we are treated to a brutally intense and well choreographed bathroom ball, an electrifying car/motorcycle chase and a hard charging rooftop foot chase. Every single one of these scenes is riveting in their own right. But the piece de resistance of the movie, and possibly the franchise is where Hunt jumps onto the hanging cargo of a helicopter, climbs up, fights the baddies in the helicopter and commandeers it to give chase to Walker in another helicopter. And Tom Cruise does all of it. It is an old action movie trope, particularly for 80’s Bond movies, where the hero hangs off the plane, fights a henchman and flies the plane away. Fallout takes one of my favourite tropes and ups the intensity, danger and stakes with Cruise unmistakably hanging from the chopper and eventually piloting. The helicopter chase is breathtaking, with the camera in the cockpit with Cruise as he pulls off death defying maneuvers in rugged mountain terrain. Seeing Cruise doing everything in the movie really serves to pull the audience into the action in a very tangible and visceral way, and we are invested in the action in a way that we might otherwise not be.
Mission Impossible Fallout is quite possibly my favourite action movie of the last few years and probably ranks up there with the all time greats. It delivers a team of characters that we have become invested in through the course of these movies, thrown into a high stakes plot with a ticking clock that serves to swiftly and efficiently carry the audience along from one breathtaking action set piece to another. Though the threat of terrorists using nuclear is nothing new, it is the execution here that really puts Fallout on a new level. Mission Impossible Fallout really is and edge of your seat thrill ride that I can’t recommend enough to anyone who enjoys a visceral action packed movie viewing experience.