OK, so its time for another post, which will be a review of a new film (for a change!) which is the latest film in the Mission Impossible franchise starring Tom Cruise, MI: Fallout.
So, six films into the franchise, how does Fallout fair??? Well, let's take a look and find out...
And while I won't go into any great detail in this review as it is quite a new movie, I will give out the usual warning all the same...
SOME PLOT SPOILERS MIGHT BE AHEAD BUT NOT TOO MANY!!!
STORY
So, the story begins with IMF agent, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) being assigned a mission to purchase three stolen plutonium cores in Berlin from a rogue terrorist group called the Apostles. Ethan is joined by his two trusted agents, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) however their mission goes awry when the Apostles take Luther hostage and as Ethan saves Luther, it allows the terrorists to escape with the plutonium.
As a result of the failure of Ethan's team, CIA director, Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) orders that Special Activities Division agent, August Walker (Henry Cavill) shadow Ethan as he attempts to retrieve the plutonium. Ethan and Walker then infiltrate a nightclub party in Paris where they are looking for an extremist named John Lark and together they subdue a suspect they believe to be Lark. However as the man attacks them both and is about to shoot Ethan and Walker, the man is suddenly killed by MI6 agent, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson).
Ethan decides to go ahead with his cover to pose as Lark without a disguise as he meets with arms dealer, Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) who Lark was supposed to be buying the cores from. However during their meeting, hitmen appear who were sent to kill Lark and Alanna and Ethan succesfully manages to evade them and escape the scene.
Alanna later tells Ethan that she will deal with him only if he extracts the notorious terrorist, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) from an armoured convoy moving through Paris, which Ethan agrees to however Alanna insists on leaving no survivors at the scene. On the day, Ethan diverts from Alanna's plan to use excessive force but manages to create a chase between the cops and Alanna's men and Lane is soon captured by Benji and Luther. However, things become complicated as Ilsa reappears and attempts to Lane but Ethan manages to evade her and takes Lane to a hiding place. Ethan was also forced to kill some of Alanna's men who were about to kill a female Parisian police officer and Alanna later pins the blame on Ilsa and demands that Ethan deliver Ilsa to her although Ethan is determined to protect her.
And its from here things get more complicated as Ethan must find a way to keep Ilsa safe from Alanna and also a way to find the stolen plutonium....
THOUGHTS
Its good to see that the MI series continues its high quality run here with Fallout as it is a very entertaining movie and yet another very worthy entry to the franchise as there is plenty of fun, thrills and excitment to be found here. Fallout has it share of twists and turns and I will of course not go into anymore of what I have already mentioned in the story sections but the film certainly is quite convoluted at times and there are plenty of details to follow. The film also has its share of colourful and interesting characters with the usual regulars of Benji, Luther but also some interesting supporting characters such as August Walker and Alanna Mitsopolis aswell as a menacing main villain in Solomon Lane.
PERFORMANCES (No notable scenes this time or quoted dialogue!)
As for the performances the cast are all on good form here once more.
Starting with Tom Cruise who effortlessly reprises his role as Ethan Hunt, the IMF agent who is just impossible to kill or keep down and is assigned the mission to hunt down missing plutonium. And Tom relies on his solid onscreen presence to carry his performance but there are also times in the film where you get the notion that the film is happening around Tom rather than him really being the star of it. Regardless of this though, Tom does his part very well once again and yet again he performs his own stunts in the film, however this time round, Tom injured himself during filming a sequence in London, as he broke his ankle, which forced the production to shut down for 7 weeks to allow Tom to heal.
Henry Cavill next up is very good in his role as August Walker, who is a CIA assassin and member of the Special Activities Divison. And Cavill really plays the part well and its good to see get his teeth into a role with a bit of colour and dimension to it after playing in the dreary one-note Superman films. Cavill himself grew a moustache for the role and was caught in the middle of the production of Fallout and also his role of Superman in Justice League at the time in which the makers of Justice League had to CGI out Cavill's moustache (well it was either that or just accept that Superman grew a tash!).
Ving Rhames is great once again as Luther Stickell, a loyal member of Ethan's IMF team and he reprises his role effortlessly here aswell. Rhames is of course now starting to show his age in the film (he is now 59) so we are getting a rather tubby looking Rhamester in this once but his performances are always very solid and he is no less than that here.
Simon Pegg is also pretty good as he reprises his role as Benji Dunn, another member of Ethan's IMF team, who is a technical field agent. Pegg plays Benji as being somewhere between a little cowardly but he is also courageous when he really has to be.
Rebecca Ferguson does very well once again too in her role as Ilsa Faust as she makes her second appearance in the franchise here after her debut in the previous film, Rogue Nation. The film actually hints at bit of romantic attraction between Ethan and Ilsa however I will not mention any more than that for now if you don't want their scenes spoiled!
Sean Harris also reprises his role very well as the primary villain, Solomon Lane, an anarchist who was the leader of the Syndicate during the events of Rogue Nation. Harris plays the part with a good degree of chilling menace and his soft spoken tones make his delivery all the more threatening for the audience.
Angela Bassett does pretty well in her role as Erika Sloane, the head of the CIA, who assigns August Walker to Ethan's team to keep an eye on him. Angela is somewhat underused in the film here but she does carry her role very well with just the right of amount of authoratitve power aswell as a bit of sass thrown in! ;-)
Michelle Monaghan also makes a reappearance as Ethan's ex-wife, Julia, who does appear later on but I won't say anymore than that for now as I think I've said enough already! Anyway, Michelle does very well in her role as Julia once again.
And last of all is Alec Baldwin who is excellent in his role as Alan Hunley a former CIA director and is now the new secretary for the IMF division. Again Baldwin's appearance here is rather short but his presence sure makes up for his role's shortfall in terms of screen time.
DIRECTOR AND MUSIC
As for the director, Christopher McQuarrie does another excellent job here with the film after his debut with Rogue Nation, he backs it up with another solid directorial effort. McQuarrie confidently handles the film's action scenes and for the most part he paces the film well enough even if it is does still feel a bit long at 2 hours and 30 minutes. McQuarrie also wrote the screenplay for the film here and the quality of his writing has always been very high (given that he wrote The Usual Suspects and won an oscar for it) and it sure is here too.
As for the music score it is by Lorne Balfe and it is a very good one overall and has some excellent tracks, particularly the one that is used during Lane's extraction sequence, which has a feel of the Hans Zimmer, Dark Knight film scores to it. In fact you could almost say that even though the Zimmer-esque nature of the score is impressive, it also in those moments makes it lack a bit of originality aswell. However, despite all that, this is still a very fine score by Balfe and a good inclusion to the series.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may or may not refer to the odd spoiler!)
As for flaws...yeah OK Fallout still does have the odd one or two.
For starters, I would have to say that the plot is at times just a bit too convoluted to follow as there are plenty of twists and turns put in here, which I guess is pretty typical of the MI franchise of course but this time round it does feel a bit heavy-handed. And of course you just know that there will be the inclusion of some fake masks at some point in the film too and this time round its Benji's turn to wear them!
I also felt that at two and a half hours long that the film is just a bit too long and there are still moments where the pacing of the film lags and it easily could have been trimmed a little to the 2 hour/2 hour 10 minute mark. I get the impression that actions films like this HAVE to be this long so they can be given an "epic" status but in doing so, most of these films just feel padded out longer than they need to be.
There of course other flaws but I will save them for another revisitation of this film, which I might do in the future but that's it for now! But I will add some more if I think of any.
SUM UP
So to sum up, Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a very solid and entertaining addition to the MI franchise and it sees the regular cast reprise their roles very well. The direction and writing from Christopher McQuarrie is again excellent and the film's action scenes are very impressive, particularly the scenes that were shot in the IMAX format which look pretty spectacular.
So overall, MI: Fallout is definitely well worth checking out and if you haven't seen it yet then I'd certainly recommend giving it a go.
OK, so that's it for now but I will be back with a couple more posts before the year is out and hopefully one just before Christmas.
So, till the next one its bye for now!
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