If you really think about it, the Mission: Impossible franchise is the most expensive and dangerous vanity project of all-time. Over the course of its 22-year existence, Tom Cruise has used this globetrotting spy franchise based on a popular late 60's/early 70's television series as his own personal stunt playground. From jumping onto the wing of a moving airplane to scaling Dubai's Burj Khalifa Tower with minimal wiring, Xenu's most prominent son has been responsible for performing some of the most absurd stunts ever put on film. Cruise's desire to cheat death has only gotten more intense as he creeps towards 60 and Fallout keeps that trend going while simultaneously delivering one of the most impressive overall entries in the Mission:Impossible franchise thus far.
Thanks to Cruise and his team's dedication to staging diverse setpieces in various exotic locations around the globe, the Mission: Impossible series has unofficially become the sampler platter of action movies. This sense of variety goes a long way in helping keep Fallout fresh over the course of its gaudy 146-minute runtime. You like chase scenes? Well, here's a winding motorcycle chase through the streets of Paris. How about hand-to-hand combat? Boom, here's a few wild fist fights featuring Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson and series newcomer Henry Cavill serving up beatdowns in confined spaces. Do hazardous stunts that any sane individual wouldn't even consider attempting tickle your fancy? If so, there's a high altitude/low parachute-release skydiving scene (otherwise known as a HALO jump) that remarkably doesn't end with multiple casualties. Not everything works (a shootout set in a London safehouse is a great example of why I will rail against shooting action scenes in the dark for the rest of time), but it still easily achieves its goal of delivering a diverse collection of thrilling sequences that should delight just about every action fan on the planet.
Tasked with making sure this high-flying circus of destruction, espionage and potential class-action lawsuits doesn't get out of hand is writer/director Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie,who is the first person in the history of the franchise to direct multiple entries, tackle these gonzo setpieces with the same level of giddiness and technical proficiency as his leading actor. Every fight, vehicle chase and aerial jump is staged with a level of clarity that perfectly complements and showcases the bold scope of the stunts and excellence of the fight choreography. While his efforts are easy to overlook underneath all the glossy on-screen spectacle, McQuarrie's practical approach to shooting/editing and complete lack of fearlessness as a filmmaker has allowed Cruise to seamlessly pull off his goal of upping the intensity and difficulty of the stuntwork in the past two installments.
As beautiful as they are to watch unfold, well-staged action scenes and virtuoso stuntwork are what you expect to see when you a buy ticket to a Mission: Impossible movie. Believe it or not, the strength of the script is what helps Fallout become a standout entry in this long-running franchise. While I'm not going to pretend this is some flawlessly-written masterpiece (the occasional attempts at sentimentality and humanizing Ethan Hunt are borderline embarrassing), it makes up for the buzzkill sins of Rogue Nation's convoluted, bizarrely prominent shadow government narrative with a pretty straightforward story that doesn't bog down the pace or shift the focus away from the stunts for unnecessarily long stretches of time. McQuarrie understands what the audience wants out of this franchise and delivers a lean narrative that provides a purpose for these absurd setpieces and nothing more. This type of storytelling efficiency is exactly what I want out of the genre and indicates to me that McQuarrie finally has all the tools to become a great genre filmmaker.
While I'm not willing to dub it one of the action genre's crowning achievements quite yet, Fallout is a terrific film that made me thankful that this franchise was revived at the beginning of this decade. Mission: Impossible is one of only a few massive, non-superhero action franchises still running, so it's great to see that the brand is even more full of kinetic energy and inspired ideas now than when it started back in 1996. As long as Cruise can still walk, I'll have no problem spending my time and money watching him put his well-being in danger for the amusement of an audience he's not in front of.
Thanks to Cruise and his team's dedication to staging diverse setpieces in various exotic locations around the globe, the Mission: Impossible series has unofficially become the sampler platter of action movies. This sense of variety goes a long way in helping keep Fallout fresh over the course of its gaudy 146-minute runtime. You like chase scenes? Well, here's a winding motorcycle chase through the streets of Paris. How about hand-to-hand combat? Boom, here's a few wild fist fights featuring Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson and series newcomer Henry Cavill serving up beatdowns in confined spaces. Do hazardous stunts that any sane individual wouldn't even consider attempting tickle your fancy? If so, there's a high altitude/low parachute-release skydiving scene (otherwise known as a HALO jump) that remarkably doesn't end with multiple casualties. Not everything works (a shootout set in a London safehouse is a great example of why I will rail against shooting action scenes in the dark for the rest of time), but it still easily achieves its goal of delivering a diverse collection of thrilling sequences that should delight just about every action fan on the planet.
Tasked with making sure this high-flying circus of destruction, espionage and potential class-action lawsuits doesn't get out of hand is writer/director Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie,who is the first person in the history of the franchise to direct multiple entries, tackle these gonzo setpieces with the same level of giddiness and technical proficiency as his leading actor. Every fight, vehicle chase and aerial jump is staged with a level of clarity that perfectly complements and showcases the bold scope of the stunts and excellence of the fight choreography. While his efforts are easy to overlook underneath all the glossy on-screen spectacle, McQuarrie's practical approach to shooting/editing and complete lack of fearlessness as a filmmaker has allowed Cruise to seamlessly pull off his goal of upping the intensity and difficulty of the stuntwork in the past two installments.
As beautiful as they are to watch unfold, well-staged action scenes and virtuoso stuntwork are what you expect to see when you a buy ticket to a Mission: Impossible movie. Believe it or not, the strength of the script is what helps Fallout become a standout entry in this long-running franchise. While I'm not going to pretend this is some flawlessly-written masterpiece (the occasional attempts at sentimentality and humanizing Ethan Hunt are borderline embarrassing), it makes up for the buzzkill sins of Rogue Nation's convoluted, bizarrely prominent shadow government narrative with a pretty straightforward story that doesn't bog down the pace or shift the focus away from the stunts for unnecessarily long stretches of time. McQuarrie understands what the audience wants out of this franchise and delivers a lean narrative that provides a purpose for these absurd setpieces and nothing more. This type of storytelling efficiency is exactly what I want out of the genre and indicates to me that McQuarrie finally has all the tools to become a great genre filmmaker.
While I'm not willing to dub it one of the action genre's crowning achievements quite yet, Fallout is a terrific film that made me thankful that this franchise was revived at the beginning of this decade. Mission: Impossible is one of only a few massive, non-superhero action franchises still running, so it's great to see that the brand is even more full of kinetic energy and inspired ideas now than when it started back in 1996. As long as Cruise can still walk, I'll have no problem spending my time and money watching him put his well-being in danger for the amusement of an audience he's not in front of.
Grade: B+
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