Ladies and gentlemen, your top contender for the greatest action movie of the century alongside Bourne Ultimatum, Skyfall and Mad Max: Road Fury.
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| Tom Cruise as IMF's Ethan Hunt. Credit: Paramount Pictures |
[MINOR SPOILER ENSUING] What is the similarity between Mission: Impossible movies and a bottle of red wine? They age well. In a Hollywood business model of crafting sequels after sequels, the M:I franchise has started to distinguish itself in a more savoury territory and keeps going better each time they spin the wheel.
This is a continuing victory ever since J.J. Abrams corrected the course in the third installment. "Fallout", now the sixth installment in this two-decade-old movie franchise, is regarded perhaps the best and it is an upcoming instant classic in years to come.
The story picks up two years after the event in "Rogue Nation" after the capture of anarchist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Turns out it is just the beginning, as "Fallout" raise the stake even higher with much more global threats under the pretext of insidious manifesto of an unknown idealist John Lark. Syndicate may fall, but right on its ashes, the group reassembles as The Apostles.
THE UPSIDES
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| Mission: Impossible - Fallout stars Simon Pegg as Benji, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, Tom Cruise as Ethan and Ving Rhames as Luther. Credit: Paramount Pictures |
"Fallout" is an amazing and solid cinematic experience, which is best viewed on the large premium platform and it lives up to its titular name of adventuring into the aftermath (read fallout) of "Rogue Nation". Coming in astoundingly refreshing is indeed a welcoming refreshment as this is now the sixth vehicle in the franchise. Of course, at the end of the movie, you are yearning for more.
This Tom Cruise-starrer is a fast-paced, highly kinetic, action-packed beast right from the beginning, and sprinkled with great wide-shot cinematography. Each punch packs visceral muscular tone, gripping and moderately brutal, yet clean and steadily done by director Christopher McQuarrie.
Every chase scene accumulation takes the best from all the classic chase scenes available in the modern time. Those street chase in the city of Paris and London, serve as two of the hallmark set pieces in the movie - both feels tight and gripping. Of course, the intense third act is stupefying to watch too.
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| Henry Cavill as August Walker. Credit: Paramount Pictures |
And the plot is no easy task to follow. It is a culmination of high brainer and convoluted old school spy plot details that becomes increasingly twistier and thrilling as it goes on. The uncanny presence of the McGuffin objects do very little to distract us from the greater story, though. At least the character chemistry seems to make this movie more lively.
THE DOWNSIDES
But with such larger-than-life plot points, many may find it utterly confusing. Who is John Lark? How is he related to Lane? Can we really trust Walker? While it plays out exactly from a chapter out of a typical Cold War spy thriller, no amount of exposition can do justice if no one can follow them intuitively. If you think "Rogue Nation" is hard to follow, try this.
The introduction of two new shady characters earlier in the movie looks to offset the absence of Jeremy Renner's character in this one. While Renner is busy saving the world in another universe, Cavill comes in as the muscle man of CIA and in character very much akin to Renner's Brandt back in "Ghost Protocol". But this Agent Walker is just doing okay, which unfortunately also means that his performance as the antagonist is pretty much unconvincing.
Perhaps my greatest complaint of all is on how they handle Angela Bassett's character with lack of development. She is written to serve little purpose and continuously work in an ambiguous character not similar in the way they handled Alec Baldwin's in "Ghost Protocol".
VERDICT
Despite the small shortcomings, it is safe to say "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is one of the best in the franchise and sets to become one of the greatest action movies of this decade. Perhaps, and no doubt, the seventh movie will definitely be coming and explores on the Apostle.
"Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is rated 8.5/10.
Distributed by Paramount Pictures, "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is a co-production of Skydance, Alibaba Pictures and Bad Robot. It stars Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, Angela Bassett and Alec Baldwin. It is directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie, based on the TV show by Bruce Geller.