Starring Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Henry Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Michelle Monaghan, Angela Basset, Vanessa Kirby & Alec Baldwin

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Paramount Pictures, in cinemas now

The legacy of Solomon Lane continues to haunt Ethan and the IMF team as his disciples seek to further their own, terrifying agenda. Faced with an army of faceless ex-secret agents hellbent on massive destruction, and shadowed by a CIA following its own path, Ethan and the team must confront the challenge of saving the world and protecting those most dear to them.

Following on from the events of Rogue Nation (though with an oddly absent Agent Brandt), Fallout confronts the team with the aftermath of the events of that previous film. Hunt is haunted by the memory of Solomon Lane, literally having the man stalk through his dreams, as well as by the memory of ex-wife Julia. The world, meanwhile, is haunted by Lane’s legacy – the remaining ultra-radicals of his Syndicate, now calling themselves the Apostles, are hell bent on creating a massive world catastrophe in service to their ‘manifesto’. Once again, Hunt and the IMF team are the only people who can try to save the day, but with added complications.

First among those complications is Angela Bassett’s Erica Sloan, CIA director who is (of course) suspicious of the IMF, unimpressed by its methods and lack of oversight. She brings with her Agent August Walker (Cavill), a rough, uncompromising assassin whose job is to oversee Hunt in the field and ensure that he isn’t distracted from the mission after an early error.

There’s also the return of Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilse, pursuing an unclear agenda of her own, and the expected complexities of dealing with a shadow organisation which is composed entirely of people trained just as well as Hunt and his team.

What follows is a fairly breathless, non-stop ride of action set pieces, knitted together in equal parts by dark, profound ruminations on the world and the nature of evil, and playful, tongue in cheek humour. Though this has never been a series in recent times that one could accuse of being po-faced, the humour here is more pronounced than ever – the screening I sat in was in helpless fits of laughter at several junctures. This even pervades into what – in other movies – might be ‘serious’ parts, as the ridiculousness gets turned all the way up to eleven, but the movie and the actors (to their credit) commit just enough to the action with just enough of a sly wink to camera that as a viewer, you’re drawn along with it.

Being a Mission: Impossible movie, there are plenty of ‘gotcha’ moments, and if you’re a long-term fan of the franchise, you’ll find yourself fairly easily able to identify many of these coming a few minutes before they do. Indeed, that’s a part of the charm of these films as a whole, that you get into the ‘rhythm’ and learn to identify when something is about to shift. It’s a feature rather than a bug, allowing you to feel a part of the team as they wow the people around them. That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t serve up some genuine surprises as well, and part of the genius is its way of knowing when to sucker punch the audience with a genuinely shocking reveal and when to flag stuff a few minutes before the punchline.

There’s some repetition of certain themes from the franchise’s past as well, though in fairness ultimately paid off in a very different way. Again, this is not a franchise which makes any bones about its core conceit – there are only so many ways to tell a narrative about a team of super-secret agents saving the world with improbable gadgets, after all.

If there’s a slight disappointment, it’s in Angela Bassett’s Sloan, who is a slightly inconsistent character from first appearance to last. It stands out all the more for the fact that every other character has a complex, deep narrative with twists and turns that manage to remain logical and easily understood. Bassett just has the unfortunate luck of being the character whose main reason to exist is as a plot device to move things along – her various appearances being either opportunities for other characters to spout exposition to her or as a moving part in some of the ‘gotcha’ moments. It’s a small oddity in an otherwise great film, but it’s noticeable nonetheless.

Ultimately though, it’s another solid and entertaining entry in a franchise which shows no sign of slowing down after 22 years. Like every other M:I movie before it, it ends in a way that could either leave the characters well alone or see them brought back in another instalment, though in fairness it’s difficult to see how they would top the threat posed in this one. But we’ve said that before…

Verdict: Pacy, punchy and packed full of as much humour as it is action. Possibly the perfect execution of the summer blockbuster formula. 9/10

Greg D. Smith

Check out Greg’s series setting the scene for Fallout:

Mission: Impossible

M:I-2

M:I:III

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation