3.5 stars out of 5
I’ve seen all the Mission: Impossible movies in the theater, whether or not they’re written and directed by a friend from high school. I also bestowed 3.5 stars on the previous two installments, which is likely as high as I’ll rate this kind of film (due to inherent silliness of the spy-vs-spy genre). All that said, Fallout felt a little stronger than recent impossible missions: more fun, more “epic.”
The gang’s mostly here: Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg. Alec Baldwin returns as the boss and gets a bit more to do this time, thankfully. (I heart Baldwin.) Ilsa, the complicated love interest from Rogue Nation, is still complicated. Also, baddie Solomon Lane from that flick is still bad. And just to show that Chris McQuarrie doesn’t only bring back characters from his own scripts, Michelle Monaghan is here as Julia, who we first met all the way back in M:I3.
The opening sequence in Berlin is especially good, before we hop to London, Paris, and Kashmir. And the action is solid throughout, whether hand-to-hand, on the road (in a BMW, because every fucking car in this movie is a BMW), or in the air. It’s on the long side for a summer blockbuster — 2.5 hours — but the film never drags. And McQuarrie the director sneaks in a couple of artful touches, and as writer keeps the plot pretty straightforward with a sprinkling of M:I laughs. So if you want a little action fix before summer’s out and fall’s in, Fallout is far out.
Jack Silbert, curator