Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) Review

Mission: Impossible-Fallout (2018)

Fallout follows Ethan Hunt, who, following a botched mission to recover a set of dangerous plutonium cores, must join forces with a CIA assassin to stop a terrorist group known as the Apostles, who plan on using the cores to unleash a string of deadly nuclear strikes. 

Widely considered the best of the franchise so far, Mission: Impossible-Fallout, while great (that’s undeniable), is missing something for me that the previous two managed to capture, and that’s a complete sense of camaraderie. The absence of Jeremy Renner’s William Brandt, paired with Ilsa’s seeming emotional unavailability (or at least that’s how they wrote her) largely impacts the tone of Fallout, in favor of putting more of a spotlight on newcomer, Agent August Walker. Which, understandably so as, even with the reintroduction of Soloman Lane, Walker still serves as our primary antagonist and a good one at that, reloading fists and all. 

To the benefit of the film however, while the first half feels a bit touch and go, the second half, kicked off by Walker’s super obvious turn, completely changes the trajectory of the movie into a much more personal, emotional thriller that sees Lane and Walker nearly succeed and take out Ethan’s former wife in the process. Putting her in danger again after all this time, because of him, provides for a strong, dramatic climax that supersedes Ethan’s apparent death wish, as well as gives us some of the greatest action in the film. 

We get a solid enough cast, starring Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cavill, and Tom Cruise. Though Cavill doesn’t impress much at first, his heel turns makes him into a pretty interesting villain, acting as the hammer to Ethan’s scalpel, forcing Cruise into one of the more physical roles of his career (and that’s saying something for these movies). 

Fallout, directed by Christopher McQuarrie, while missing many of the fun, lightly comedic elements of the previous two, still stands out as an exciting and deeply personal flick with plenty of thrills to go around until Dead Reckoning Part 1. 

8.5/10