Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Two years after Solomon Lane’s capture, the Syndicate has reorganised under John Lark, an extremist working with a death-worshipping nuclear weaponsmith. Lark has three nuclear weapon cores in the wild. Ethan’s team are why he has them. Working with CIA Pitbull August Walker (Henry Cavill) they race across Europe to try to find the bombs before Lark does.

The entire series is strong, and a solid three of them are all-time greats but Fallout may well be the franchise highlight. The humour that was explored across the last two movies is folded into the continuity that’s been built up to create a world for Ethan to run across and it works so well. The continuity from previous movies is all light touches, even Lane’s return, but it all helps the world feel more connected. Vanessa Kirby’s Alanna Mitsopolis is a great addition to the cast and a tie to the original movie and Ghost Protocol. She’s also a useful lens to view Ethan through; a man of such moral certainty and focus that over two decades after he encountered her mother he’s still doing exactly what the same thing. Always disavowed, always disgraced, never without an exit strategy, never without a plan.

Fallout takes all those elements and gives the world’s least lucky/most lucky man the worst day of his life so far. Cavill’s Walker is Hunt but younger, stronger and far more dangerous. His refusal to care, and his eventual reveal, isn’t subtle but it ties into the movie’s surprising heart, a heart established in the very first scene. The fact Ethan lets the cores go rather than let Luther die is pivotal to him as a character and the franchise as a whole. This is a story about people mattering so much that the greatest thing we can do is also always the simplest; help. And on occasion have a helicopter chase.

Again, this entire movie is fun, and again, it pushes the series’ grammar. A bad plan in Paris is played out in flashforward before we see how it really goes.  A skydive into and through a Parisian thunderstorm is a nightmarish descent into Hell punctuated with a gloriously burly, bathroom destroying fight. Ethan, Luther and Benji aren’t the IMF so much as a law unto themselves, with Ilsa as a lone wolf slowly circling back in from the cold. Rebecca Ferguson is on top form here and the movie’s charm comes from the fact Ilsa is constantly on time, on point and prepared and the IMF boys look like they’ve just been thrown backwards through an exploding hedge. That inherent tension leads to a sparking car chase in Paris and an end sequence that ties Ilsa, Ethan, the rest of the team and the rest of the movies together.

The final half hour of Fallout may be the best extended sequence the series has ever done. At one point, Ethan and Walker are fighting to the death in and around a pair of helicopters they’ve just wrecked, Ilsa has to choose between vengeance, saving the world or saving Benji, and Luther and Julia are diffusing a nuclear bomb. The stakes are higher than ever but they’re viewed through such human lenses that the scene becomes honestly poignant. There’s a moment I’ve never picked up on before where Ethan has a carefully coded conversation with his former wife. It’s lovely, a reminder of how sympatico the two are. You can see Ilsa and Benji in the background, out of focus. The conversation finishes, Ethan sprints off and he and the others come into focus as they run off shot. Saving the world, not as an abstract concept, but because of the people in it. A later moment where all seems lost and Luther tells Julia to spend her last few minutes with her new husband rings just as true. People matter, and that’s a concept the series will explore more in its weirdest instalment,

Verdict: Fallout is the best Mission: Impossible movie so far. Its action sequences are ludicrously huge, its script snaps and sparks and it’s made of heart. One of the best action movies of the 21st century to date. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Highlights: The London chase sequence is the funniest, and gnarliest, the series has ever been. The nested action sequences in Paris. The entire final half hour