Movie Review: No Franchise Fallout From ‘Mission: Impossible-Fallout’

(Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures)

22 Years and Counting 

Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to get down to the movie house quick, fast and in a hurry to see Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible-Fallout.”

Why?

Simple.

Because, “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” is dope and full of cool car chase, fights, and twists and turns despite the fact that it relies on the fear of terrorism like so many current Hollywood movies.

In “Mission: Impossible-Fallout,” the Apostles pose one of the greatest threats to global peace that the world has ever seen.

If the Apostles get their hands on plutonium, they will have all of the necessary ingredients to launch a nuclear attack on the holiest cities on Earth like Jerusalem, Rome and Mecca.

When Ethan Hunt (Cruise) gets the mission from a mysterious fella who appears on his doorstep on a rainy night, he accepts the mission because that is what Ethan does.

He never runs from a challenge or any of his duties with the IMF.

Ethan gathers the usual suspects, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) in an attempt to purchase the plutonium before the Apostles get their hands on the dangerous ingredient.

However, when something goes wrong, the boys from IMF go from crisis averted to crisis ignited.

After Ethan and the crew fail to safely secure the plutonium, IMF gets some unwanted assistance from the CIA and Erica Sloan (Angela Bassett).

Erica does not trust IMF to handle the mission and bring back the plutonium.

Furthermore, Erica most definitely does not trust Ethan and his daredevil and careless stunts.

Unfortunately, Ethan’s reckless past precedes him within the walls of the United States government and beyond.

Word on the street is that the sale of the plutonium that IMF let slip through their fingers will be sold on the black market at a luxurious hotel in the beautiful and glamorous city of Paris.

To Ethan’s dismay, he will not visit Paris alone or with his IMF comrades.

Thanks to Erica, Ethan will visit Paris with his newfound “frenemy,” August Walker (Henry Cavill, “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”).

Walker is a peculiar choice for their Paris mission, however.

He is not a fan of Ethan.

And Ethan is not a fan of his.

Additionally, Walker is even more reckless than Ethan and has the body count to prove it.

When the un-dynamic duo of Ethan and Walker stumble into Paris, literally, their plan to nab the plutonium and stop it from getting into the wrong hands takes a deadly turn.

As a result, the pair has to get creative in order to stop terrorists from getting their hands on the final ingredient to build a nuclear weapon.

What happens next is a race to save the world, save reputations and save lives because everyone is not who they appear to be and everyone does not have the same interests.

Who the good guys are and who the bad guys are is definitely not easy to discern in “Mission: Impossible-Fallout.”

In actuality, the fallout for some might be too much of a hole to dig out from under in “Mission: Impossible-Fallout.”

And when an old foe shows up, the IMF might be done forever.

“Mission: Impossible-Fallout” continues the momentum for Cruise and the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

This film franchise has gone strong for so many years that children have been born who have never known Cruise before his role as Ethan Hunt.

For 22 years, fans have rushed out to see the exploits of Ethan Hunt and they should definitely not stop in 2018 because the franchise has never been much better.

Furthermore, “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” continues the personal momentum for Cruise, the actor.

Do you remember when Cruise was known more for weird and outlandish behavior like jumping on Oprah Winfrey’s couch as he professed his love for Katie Holmes, who ended up leaving him for his friend, Jamie Foxx?

Well, Cruise is probably still weird but he has regained his box office mojo after a string of misses in the not too distant past.

After misses with “Valkyrie” and “Knight and Day,” Cruise has hit pay dirt by returning to “Mission: Impossible” and killing it as a gangster pilot in “America Made.”

And the future continues to look bright for Cruise as he nears the age of 60 with “Mission: Impossible-Fallout.”

The latest installment for the long-running franchise is the prototypical action film.

The fights are legendary.

The car chases are spine tingling.

The acting is O.K.

And the plot is decent, but redundant because Hollywood is obsessed with the theme of terrorism and understandably so since the world seems more dangerous now than ever before.

And after all, art does imitate life.

However, a good action flick knows when to imitate life and when to let moviegoers escape from the realities of life.

“Mission: Impossible-Fallout” does a great job of balancing the real from the unlikely.

Sure, some movie critics might scoff at some of the scenes because they are not realistic.

But action films are not supposed to be totally realistic.

And “Mission: Impossible” movies never tried to be totally realistic in the first place.

“Mission: Impossible” films simply tried to be action-packed, adrenaline rushes.

And “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” definitely fits the bill.

The opening scene of “Mission: Impossible” films where the apparatus that mission arrives in blows up has never been realistic.

Those scenes have just always been really cool.

And “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” is another really cool installment for the franchise, despite the predictable outcome.

Furthermore, despite Cruise’s bad choices in films several years ago, he still knows how to balance out his acting resume.

Cruise knows how to choose big budget action films that will be blockbuster successes.

And he knows how to pick serious roles that allow him to show off his acting chops from time to time.

More importantly, Cruise knows how to keep himself in good health to continue to play a believable action star.

When other actors his age look like they can only be believable in beer commercials, Cruise’s physical condition gives no indication of his older age.

The fact that Cruise still looks like young Ethan Hunt from 1996, makes it even easier for him to accept each mission that the “Mission: Impossible” franchise gives him, 22 years after the fact.