Buckle up once more, nothing is impossible
Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris Climbing to a new peak for the spectacular view YOUR cinematic mission, should you choose to accept it, should not be a matter of choice at all.
For Mission: Impossible — Fallout is not only the best film to carry the M:I badge in the 22-year-old history of the Tom Cruise-led franchise, It is also the most ferociously realised action picture to storm the big screen since Mad Max: Fury Road.
If you have heard the early word on the clear and present greatness of Fallout, be assured this hyper-kinetic espionage adventure does not only live up to the hype. It blasts right past it. Every shred of that high praise has been earned the right way and the hard way — with big ideas brashly executed with little margin for error.
Breaking many a sweat (and in one already famous moment in shooting, an ankle) to ensure this perpetually twisting and tumbling affair continues to stick its dizzying array of difficult dismounts is 56-year-old Cruise.
His daredevil IMF agent Ethan Hunt remains a magnetic mascot for the M:I effect, flinging himself into the fray with impressive physical abandon (and, importantly, often without any back-up from the special effects team).
As usual, Hunt will be polevaulting all over the atlas, this time in a bid to stop some bad dudes getting their grubby paws on some dirty nukes.
No one goes to a Mission: Impossible movie for the plot, and no one in their right mind will be able to make too much sense of what Fallout is always up to on this front. If you do need any vital story intel, pay close attention to the bits where Hunt and his super-spy sidekicks Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) are banging on about some bloke called John Lark (an arms dealer no one has seen) and some mob codenamed the Apostles (a terrorist group everyone fears).
Otherwise, kick back and let a colourful cavalcade of support characters either provoke or prevent the next gofor-broke action sequence.
While there are too many worthwhile contributors in the lower casting tiers to list, mention must be made of Henry “Superman” Cavill as August Walker, the CIA assassin compelled by government decree to ghost Hunt’s every move.
Also making intriguing returns from the last M:I instalment Rogue Nation are Hunt’s good friend Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and mortal enemy Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).