Mission: Impossible - Fallout Saves the World and the Summer

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Mission: Impossible – Fallout was a standout action movie. It is what other action movies strive to be. It is the pinnacle of 2018 summer blockbusters and I am sympathetic for every subsequent action movie I review this year. It did Bourne better than Bourne. It did Jack Ryan better than Jack Ryan. It might have even done Bond better than Bond. I need to see it again to give myself a chance to potentially find a flaw, because it was so fast-paced that I missed any blemishes. The movie starts fast and does not let up for the blistering 2 hours and 37 minutes. The only reason to check your watch during this movie is if there is a heart monitor on it and you are afraid the tension will kill you. Fallout found that perfect balance of tension, action, humor, and plot that so many action movies aim to achieve. Simon Pegg is the primary source of humor, but he and the movie were self-aware enough to know when it was the appropriate time for a quip. Pegg wasn’t the only shining star in the film, which featured another stellar performance from Tom Cruise and possibly Henry Cavill’s best performance in a movie. I will restate my claim that Tom Cruise is the best action movie star in the history of cinema. You can argue for someone else, but you will not be able to change my mind. That man is an ageless wonder and the government should protect a sample of his DNA for the preservation of our species. Cavill was the Mike Alstott to Cruise’s Warrick Dunn (for my late 90s, early 2000s sports fan demographic). He was a tank in this film and proved that keeping the mustache was not a mistake, because there was no way that Justice League was ever going to be as good as Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Not to pile of the DCEU, but Angela Bassett did a better job being Amanda Waller in this movie than Viola Davis did in Suicide Squad, and Bassett played CIA director Erica Sloan. I watched the five previous Mission: Impossible movies in the three days leading up to Fallout’s release, and the only thing any of them did better was the use of music and sound in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. That is by no means an indictment of this movies sound design, it is just exemplifying how Rogue Nation used sound and music and its absence to help broaden the impact of critical moments. Fallout did the same, just not as well. I absolutely loved this movie and I give Mission: Impossible – Fallout 3 out of “This review will self-destruct in 3…2…1…Boom!”