Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Second Opinion)

It was over more than 20 years ago that the first instalment of Mission: Impossible was released in the cinema.

In 1996, we got the first glimpse of Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise (“The Mummy“, “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation“), an agent of the fictional Impossible Missions Force (IMF), and his team trying to rescue everyone by kicking some bad guy’s asses, by performing some world class stunts and also falling in love once in a while.

Fast forward to 2018, the sixth Mission: Impossible movie with the second one from director Christopher McQuarrie, who was also in the director’s chair during Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

A lot of things changed during the years, other producers and directors but also new stories and incredibly much improved filming equipment. However, the key elements of success are still there: Tom Cruise as the main lead with no fear and dread whatsoever, his wingmen Ving Rhames (“Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2“, “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation“) playing Luther Stickell and Simon Pegg (“Terminal“, “Ready Player One“) starring as Benji Dunn, the “over-the-top entertainment” and amazing craftsmanship.

Even a predictable story might already be part of its success because sadly that’s still the case in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

“Your mission Mr. Hunt, should you choose to accept it…” not the first time and certainly not the last time that Ethan Hunt will hear these words.

For this movie that sentence could be filled in with “… is to extract three plutonium cores which have been stolen by The Apostles, a terrorist group related to The Syndicate” and based on the first 25 minutes the mission would be totally possible to do in a heartbeat.

However, it wouldn’t be a real Mission: Impossible film if things would go according to plan from the beginning. Hunt let the plutonium cores slips through his fingers to save one of his team. A mistake that he made in the past and one that can have a disastrous outcome for the future.

Especially because, inspired by their imprisoned leader Solomon Lane, Sean Harris (“’71”, “Prometheus“), The Apostles are planning to blow up large parts of the globe because “there cannot be peace without, first, a great suffering and the greater the suffering, the greater the peace”.

So, for the next two hours of the movie, Hunt’s mission is to capture the three plutonium cores and make sure that the world is safe again. Or is there more to it than at first?

Well, you already know the answer to that question due to the predictability of the story. However, nothing was as it seems in this movie; good people turn into bad ones and the other way around.

In every scene there’s tons of action, humour but also the wonder about who’s bad and who’s good. Especially when there are new characters brought into the game such as August Walker, Henry Cavill (“Justice League“, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.“) to shadow Hunt and The White Widow, Vanessa Kirby (“The Crown (TV)”, “Kill Command”), an arms stealer who’s prepared to give Hunt one of the plutonium cores in exchange for Solomon Lane.

Of course there’s still the golden trio Cruise- Rhames – Pegg that not only bring action and power to the movie again but also wittiness, humour and fun.

The scene in which they want to extract information regarding the cores shows that you should never change a winning team and certainly when it’s one from this calibre.

Sean Harris still gives us the creeps in a good way as Lane, the manic and brain behind The Syndicate. “Who run the world? Girls!”. That line from Beyonce is very fitting when it comes to Mission: Impossible – Fallout.  Yes, ok there might a lot of men power on screen but the women also definitely know how to run and rule the world.

We already mentioned the fierce White Widow but also the furious Ilsa, Rebecca Ferguson (“Life“, “The Greatest Showman”) and Erica Sloane, Angela Bassett (“Chi-Raq”, “London Has Fallen”), as the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who clearly know how to stand up and fight for what they believe in.

With a cast like that, a movie can’t go wrong and especially not when you add a loads of stunts to it. Everyone already knows about that “jump off the building” scene during which Cruise broke his ankle which caused a delay in the production of the movie but Mission: Impossible – Fallout has so many more amazing scenes to offer.

Each and every one extremely well thought of, balanced, clever and entertaining. Think about Tom Cruise hanging off a wire trying to go from one helicopter in the air to another, his motor race through the heart of Paris or the fight scene in the toilet in which he shares the spotlight with Cavill and Liang Yang.

We can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it was to meticulously plan and craft the cinematography for this movie. The actors are doing the stunts on screen and that’s what we see but we forget that another person(s) needs to do the same stunts to shoot the movie as amazing as it is.

Hats off to each and every one of the cinematography crew, led by Rob Hardy, for turning this film into an amazing one.

If you want to escape to heat in the best way possible, then go to the cinema and go and check Mission: Impossible – Fallout in Imax. A blockbuster like this, filled with top notch entertainment, superb acting performance, breath-taking stunts and eye-widening cinematography, deserves to be watched on the biggest screen there’s.