MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT (Malaysia, 26 Jul 2018)

Genre: Action / Thriller

Running Length: 2:27

Cast: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cavill, Michelle Monaghan, Vanessa Kirby, Angela Bassett, Sean Harris, Alec Baldwin

Director: Christopher McQuarrie 

Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie, based on the television series by Bruce Geller 

What’s this movie about? 

In MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team join forces with CIA assassin August Walker (Cavill) to race against time to prevent three nuclear warheads from being detonated by an evil organization called The Apostles.

In the process, the mission becomes complicated as the team gets entangled with a mysterious woman named “White Widow” (Kirby), former ally Ilsa Faust (Ferguson) and arch-enemy from the last movie Rogue Nation, Solomon Lane (Harris).

Highlights!

• The white-knuckle action sequences. The M:I franchise started out as a thriller and have now morphed into this full-on relentlessly-paced action adventure.  All the action scenes are meticulously planned from the halo jump to the final OMG! WTF! crazy helicopter chase scene. My favourite one is the motorcycle chase scene in Paris - I was like on the edge of my seat!
• The camera work.  The tourist location stunts especially of Tom running and jumping from one rooftop to another is clean and breathtaking. No green screen shaky camera BS. 
• Tom Cruise. You know he brought his A game and wasn’t phoning in. Every run, every leap, every punch, every fall and every climb = 100% Tom Cruise.

 

Lowlights 

• The story. It’s nothing new. We have seen this plot many times before. 
• The score. Nothing really memorable here. It was actually distracting especially the earlier action scenes. They need not dramatize it with a score where it’s already breath-taking enough. It was an overkill (except the motorcycle chase scene where a score was absent – that’s probably why that sequence was much more effective). 
• No real danger. Yes, there are suspenseful moments but at the back of my mind, I knew everything will be ok. That’s why I still preferred the first Mission: Impossible - it was designed to be a thriller first, the action came in thereafter. In that movie, there was that tensed and "quiet" iconic cable-dangling backflip moment. In Fallout, it is just loud balls-to-the-wall action. 

In summary 

The 2.5 hours of non-stop action can be exhausting and draining. If they shaved off 20 to 25 mins, the film could be a much tighter experience. Nevertheless, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT is probably the best action blockbuster this year. 

Rating: 8/10