Christopher McQuarrie seems to love schooling the Bond franchise. He out-performed the series like mad with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and as far as action filmmaking goes, has set the bar so impossibly high, other directors are going to have a pretty hard time topping what he’s achieved here. Easily the best action opus since George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is an unhinged symphony of stunt-work, delivering more elaborate and spectacularly executed action set pieces than any other picture I can recall – with star Tom Cruise front and center in virtually all of them.
McQuarrie (who writes and directs) springboards the plot directly off of Rogue Nation, with villainous Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) still orchestrating a global network of anarchistic terror attacks. Only this time, he’s got nukes. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his Impossible Missions team are joined by Henry Cavill (Justice League) as a CIA foil thrown into the mix. The action is global, and downright relentless. There are moments when exposition over-inflates, and disbelief dangles by a thread, but those moments are brief, as 90% of the film consists of truly astounding practical stunts and action sequences that are immersive and downright enthralling.
Cruise is absolutely deranged in his commitment to stunt participation, literally risking life and limb countless times, completion bonds be damned. In a truly audacious sequence of aerial HALO jumping (High Altitude-Low Opening), it’s Cruise free-falling at 25,000 feet – a sequence that required the actor to make over 100 jumps to achieve. It’s an astonishing scene to behold – but only one of many. Motorcycle chases, helicopter attacks, leaping from rooftops – Cruise and McQuarrie deliver realistic, practical action, kicking computer-assists to the curb. Editor Eddie Hamilton continues to cut top-flight whiplash-inducing sequences for maximum kinetic effect. Cinematographer Rob Hardy gives the film a rich, visceral canvas that keeps you in the mix, making the outlandish feel convincing.
Cavill is great here, a real menacing presence, evoking the blunt instrument brutality of Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love. There’s a phenomenal bathroom fight sequence with champion Wushu fighter Liang Yang that’s just incredibly well executed. Yang makes a tremendous, ferocious impression, mopping the floor with both Cruise and Cavill.
Rebecca Ferguson continues to impress, bringing real talent to her role as an agent forced into a hard corner. There are some moments of eye-rolling (The White Widow?!?) and excess to get through, but the high stakes third act easily washes any minor carps away. It’s a finale of jaw-dropping tension that really wows, and must have been an incredible challenge to choreograph. Tom Cruise is the Buster Keaton of action movies, willing to physically endure any and all manner of injuries and peril to create an entertaining scene – and McQuarrie really vaults to the top ranks here; he’s going to be wildly in demand from now on. If you love spy movies, and need a serious action fix, Fallout is ready to push you right out of the plane.
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