ETHAN HUNT is back, in the IMF, which hilariously stands for Impossible Mission Force. After an operation gone wrong, three plutonium…things? have gone missing and a scientist who has the ability to turn them into nuclear weapons has been kidnapped.
Hunt must team up with a CIA assassin for some reason and attempt to return the plutonium and make sure everything is all right with the world. First let me say, this movie is absolutely brilliant. For the first time in the franchise's history, it has a returning director, Christopher McQuarrie, who really knows what he is doing with this genre.
For me, the Mission Impossible movies have now surpassed the Bond and Bourne films, taking what is best from both of those franchises. Throw in a little Fast and Furious type extreme stunts and it is pretty much the perfect action series. The locations are genuinely breathtaking, the stunts incredible, and the script genuinely witty.
Each Mission Impossible movie follows a template. Hunt is given a mission which he can choose not to accept (bit weird for a government agency ). Something goes wrong. He is disavowed by his government, and in the end he saves the day, it’s all grand. Within this template there are always three large set pieces. One of the set pieces in Fallout is a high speed chase around Paris. There is a moment where Tom Cruise drives against traffic into the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe. I once went the right way around that roundabout in the back of a taxi at about 20kmph and it was positively terrifying. Watching Tom Cruise do it on a motor bike is more anxiety inducing than any nuclear bomb timer count down (there is one of them too actually and it is pretty rattling ).Tom Cruise is a bit Marmite. I love the guy - OK, he does seem like a massive weirdo I’ll concede that. One of the core beliefs in Scientology is 75 millions years ago an alien called Xenu brought billions of people to earth - but the man puts absolutely everything into these movies. He shattered his ankle while jumping from one building to another and they actually use the footage in the film. It is so disgusting, but I love it. He might actually die soon trying to entertain us, so if nothing else, it would be rude not go see his films. Either he’s going to die making these movies or he’s going to ascend to Xenu. Hope we get a few more movies out of him before either of those happens.