It goes. Mad Max: Fury Road. The Dark Knight. Mission Impossible: Fallout. Those are the best action movies in the last decade.
The year was 1996, Tom Cruise was slowly becoming the worlds biggest movie star. Now they wanted to reinvent the classic television show Mission Impossible. Hollywood hadn’t really been doing this, it hadn’t become as frequent as we see today. So when they picked Cruise to lead the charge, the outcome was up in the air. Well 6 movies and 22 years later, the Mission Impossible film franchise is the best franchise in the world today. It wasn’t always like this for Ethan Hunt. It’s taken 5 different film makers, countless years before each new installment to arrive at this point. Brian De Palma’s Mission Impossible changed the game, it also changed the landscape for Cruise’s career. He was a bonafide action star after the release of this movie and it helped shape the rest of the career we have all come to love. Somehow these movies keep getting better and better and the newest addition is a worthy contender for one of the best action movies I’ve ever seen.
Ethan Hunt is back and he’s better than ever. If you haven’t been along for the ride with this franchise, well, what’s your problem? This movie is exhilarating from start to finish, throw in some unique suspense, a brick shithouse (Henry Cavill) and you have the best summer blockbuster of 2018. Mission Impossible: Fallout isn’t just the best movie in the franchise, but it’s simply one of the best action movies of the last decade. I had extremely high expectations going into it, after the terrific Rogue Nation, which was directed by Christopher McQuarrie. He returns and is the only film maker to do so in this franchise to direct Fallout. He’s worked with Cruise on 9 different projects, so to say they have a great understanding of one another and a terrific relationship is an understatement.
So it’s up to Ethan and his team to once again save the world. Crazy how many times one person can save the world from annihilation, but all of these movies have terrific stories and are terrifically written. So it doesn’t really matter to me, in fact, I can’t wait to watch the next one already. The usual suspects are back, Simon Pegg as Benji, Ving Rhames as Luther, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilas and throw in new comers Henry Cavill as August Walker and Angela Bassett as Erica Stone. Two worthy additions I might add, because Henry Cavill somehow manages to steal the show from Cruise himself. I’ve always liked Henry, I just don’t think he’s gotten enough chances to showcase his talents in Hollywood. Well his whole repertoire is on display here, and he does a fantastic job as the films villain. Speaking of villains Sean Harris returns as the baddie from Rogue Nation, and yeah he might not pose the physical threat that Cavill does, but he’s so menacing and his voice is just so god damn perfect for a villain in a Mission Impossible movie, that they really play well off each other. The movie gets crowded pretty quickly, but that needs to happen in order to set up the entire movie, and McQuarrie does a fantastic job balancing all these pieces out. This is a non-stop action thrill ride, but that doesn’t mean there is a story here. There is a ton of emotion at play, between Ethan and his team. He lives by the mentality of one life over a million, and there’s some real fat to be chewed throughout the film. A lot of that emotion comes from Ethan’s relationship with Luther. Ving Rhames has been in all 6 M.I movies, the only other cast member to be in all of them, except for Cruise. They have built a close relationship and usually his role deals with him sitting in a van. He’s always the brains behind the operation, the smartest guy in the room, but this time they let him out of the van and he’s doing stuff, which was great to see. Simon Pegg is actually the one who takes a back seat in this one. McQuarrie even stated that Pegg was a little thrown off by this, but it was time to tell Ethan’s and Luther’s story, and it really worked out nicely.
Now for all the good stuff, the action, the stunts and Tom Cruise being the most badass man on the planet. The man does all of his own stunts, has done them all for as long as I can remember. You gotta see this in IMAX, there’s a helicopter sequence at the end of this that is so mind blowing and the fact that Cruise himself learned how to fly a damn helicopter is insane. He jumps off a building, he parachutes from an airplane, this guy is actually a real life hero. Much like this franchise, which doesn’t get the credit it deserves, neither does Cruise. The Fast and Furious franchise or the MCU gets praised, and people kind of sleep on these movies, and they are so good. The crazy thing is how this could have been dead in the water. JJ Abrams saved this franchise with M.I.3 and that was after a 6 year hiatus. It has been 22 years and it’s still going, actually it’s never been better. This is the LeBron James of movie franchises.
Look I don’t want to go into insane detail about this movie. You gotta simply go see it for yourself. For the love god, even if it’s for the 3 minute bathroom fight scene. That’s so brutal and hard hitting, it’s honestly one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever watched. There have been so many bad movies this summer that have made way more at the box-office and it kind of isn’t fair. Go see this, then tell a bunch of your friends to see it, and maybe even go see it again.
Nate’s Movie Tour Reviews – Mission Impossible Fallout = 94/100
