Blockbuster of the year? Quite possibly
Tom Cruise will never play James Bond, but there’s a parallel universe in which he’s basically Felix Leiter, 007’s CIA buddy, and now six films deep into his own increasingly Bond-like franchise. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the first of these films to re-use a director, reneging on the initial plan of their producer and star to get a fresh auteur behind the camera each time. If we had to pick one name to return, it’s not likely anyone’s top choice would have been Christopher Mcquarrie, whose fifth instalment, Rogue Nation, was the wooliest and least memorable to date – blurring, in my own head at least, with the dingy-basement intrigue and hoarse machismo of Jack Reacher.
What a turn-up for the books, then, that Mcquarrie has got it so right on his second try. Fallout doesn’t stint on the state-of-the-art set pieces that have long been a series staple, ever since Cruise dangled above that motionsensitive vault floor with Brian De Palma holding the strings. Beyond these highlights, it has tricks in its story you don’t see coming, and even the several scenes in, yep, dingy basements pay off with nifty reversals that justify every beat of their seemingly drab exposition.
Take the killer opening, which feels awfully sombre and fun-free – nuclear attacks in holy cities? – until you figure out the game Cruise and Mcquarrie are playing. It’s not the last rug-pull tucked away in a pleasingly sinuous plot, about smallpox outbreaks, extremist splinter cells and bartered plutonium, which snakes its way from Belfast, via lengthy stops in Paris and London, to culminate with helicopter chases that dance with serene majesty above Kashmir’s Himalayas.
Rogue Nation, perhaps, could be looked upon as just a dry run, a mere drawing board for all the feints and ruses developed this time, snagging Hunt and his dependable mainstays Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) in a spider-web of shifting affiliations. Not one of the agents played by Angela Bassett, Alec Baldwin or Rebecca Ferguson is consistently on their side. Then, there’s Henry Cavill, who gets a kind of extended guest spot as a surly CIA assassin called Walker, complete with porny moustache.
While not everything works out perfectly, it’s hard not to surrender to the sheer practical chutzpah of Mcquarrie’s aims this time. When Cruise is clambering around St Paul’s, over the top of Blackfriars Bridge and to the summit of the Tate Modern, it’s oddly beautiful to watch London geography being so crisply respected, even while it’s being used as a giant plaything. OK, Mcquarrie may not have De Palma’s sweat-drop precision, John Woo’s craziness or the impish wit of Brad Bird, but his mastery of logistics here is easily sufficient to make it the blockbuster of the summer. Opens on July 25