‘Mission’ amazing
‘Impossible’ franchise, its star show no signs of aging as ‘Fallout’ wows with highly impractical practical effects
Arecent vacation killed the opportunity for me to screen in advance and review the recently released action film “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.”
Thus, like so many of you — “Fallout” earned more than $60 million at US box offices the first few days of its release — I eagerly headed to a theater to see it during a regular old showing. (Side note: I don’t know how y’all sit through sooo many trailers. My lord, getting to the actual movie takes forever anymore, and it’s something we fancy critic types don’t have to deal with at screenings. My sympathies.)
And, presumably like many of you, I sat with my mouth agape — my jaw was sufficiently dropped — for so much of the nearly twoand-a-half-hour runtime of “Fallout,” the sixth installment in a series dating back more than two decades.
No, it’s not the over-the-top twists and turns for which the spy-movie franchise is so well known that so captivated me. The betrayals and man-in-a-mask reveals are as fun, but also as predictable, as ever.
It was another of the series’ calling cards that demanded my full attention and even a bit of breath-holding: the simply incredible set pieces. The big, action-filled stretches in “Fallout” are absolutely amazing.
The parachute drop into a lightning storm? Wicked.
The bathroom fight? Really well-choreographed.
The motorcycle chase against traffic in Paris? InSANE.
The epic helicopter pursuit along a mountainous terrain that helps bring the movie to a close? Are you kidding me with that?
And, most astonishingly, while they range from unbelievable to outright ridiculous, they feel more rooted in reality than those in so many other popcorn flicks.
Myriad highly talented people behind the scenes undoubtedly deserve credit for how these “Fallout” sequences turned out — and for how you sort of believe what you’re seeing even through you know you can’t. Still, I simply
must shine a light on two men: series star Tom Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie.
“‘Mission: Impossible’ is all about practical stunts, practical action and real locations with as little green screen as humanly possible,” McQuarrie says in the film’s production notes. “Tom is ready and willing to do just about anything we can conjure up. So you have to find ways to put the camera where you can see that your star is actually performing these stunts, so everything is designed around putting Tom in the center of the action.” Mission accomplished. While you know — or you think you know — Cruise can’t possibly be doing all the stunts in the film, it sure looks as if he is highly involved in most of them. That idea is backed up by a promotional video from the film’s studio, Paramount Pictures, that provides a window into the stunt work Cruise did on the film. (Watch it at bit. ly/fallout-stunts.) It’s well worth a watch, if only because you can see the moment where Cruise broke his ankle as his character, Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt, jumps from one building to another — a well-publicized injury that delayed the production for weeks. The coolest part? After the impact on the side of the building that caused the break, Cruise still pulled himself up and began to limp forward for a shot that made it into the film.
You really have to hand it to the actor. Say what you will be about a few moments from his personal life and ties to the controversial religion Scientology, but that man must be living a pretty clean existence. Who has aged better that Cruise, who recently turned 56? (Recently, the ESPN Radio show “The Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz” delighted in the fact Cruise was a few years older when making “Fallout” than the Wilford Brimley was when he made 1985’s “Cocoon,” which is rather mind-blowing.)
Cruise wisely has all but chained himself to McQuarrie in recent years. They first worked together on 2008’s McQuarrie-penned “Valkyrie,” in which Cruise pulled off the portrayal of a Nazi officer involved in a plot to assassinate German leader Adolf Hitler during World War II. In 2012, McQuarrie directed Cruise in “Jack Reacher,” and despite Cruise seeming very wrong for author Lee Child’s Army-officerturned-one-man-army, the action-thriller really works. Following Cruise starring in the excellent 2014 science-fiction drama “Edge of Tomorrow,” adapted for the screen by McQuarrie, the latter directed him in the predecessor to “Fallout,” 2015’s strong “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.” McQuarrie, aka “McQ,” also wrote that script.
McQuarrie quite obviously knows what Cruise does and does not do well. Look no further than 2016’s borderline-terrible “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” to see what can happen when Cruise strays from the man who won an Academy Award for the script to 1995’s “The Usual Suspects.” (It should be noted McQuarrie is credited as a producer on “Never Go Back,” a scheduling conflict kept him from being involved at a more meaningful level.)
The only downside of bringing back McQuarrie for a second very difficult “Mission” is “Fallout” feels like a direct sequel to “Rogue Nation.” Starting with the enjoyable Brian De Palma-directed “Mission: Impossible,” continuing with the action-heavybut-empty “Mission: Impossible 2” (2000) from director John Woo” and finisning with director J.J. Abrams overly emotional “Mission: Impossible III” in 2006, each film in the series seemed distinct. But since director Brad Bird’s laudable “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” in 2011, the entries have felt a bit too similar to one another.
That said, considering what McQuarrie has accomplished with “Fallout,” you’ll get no complaints from me if Paramount Pictures wants to sign him up for a third “Mission: Impossible.” Should he accept, that film surely would be an action-packed charm.
I continue to think April’s epic, digital effects-laden “Avengers: Infinity War” is the best movie of the summer season, but “Fallout” comes pretty close doing things a different way.
Be sure to see this one in the theater — in a theater with a big screen and many speakers.
And it will be dark, so don’t worry if your mouth hangs open the whole time.