Tom Cruise is back in his seemingly regular attempt at suicide via Hollywood blockbuster with Mission: Impossible – Fallout. The sixth film in the franchise has already made plenty of headlines with Cruise breaking his ankle during one stunt (which he completed filming by the way, as an inhuman action demigod does), and also pulling off a few more, like doing an actual HALO jump that was so dangerous that they had to film it in the UAE because other countries wouldn’t allow it for real. And based on the absolutely incredible praise the latest instalment in the spy action thriller has been drawing, it was totally worth it.
The first real sequel in the franchise, as it picks up very soon after the events of the already brilliant Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Fallout sees Christopher McQuarrie writing and directing again with recent franchise members like Rebecca Ferguson as Ilze Faust and Sean Harris as baddie Solomon Lane returning alongside Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and the rest of his team while Henry Cavill and his infamous moustache debut. The first press screening for the film happened in LA in the early hours of yesterday morning our time, and through the course of the day short reactions were posted to Twitter by those who were in attendance. And damn they were positive.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — FALLOUT is easily the best action movie since Fury Road. just god-level stuff. the highest praise I can give a movie: I’m not even mad it’s making me late to Radiohead.
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) July 12, 2018
The acting Rebecca Ferguson can do through a fucking motorcycle helmet is amazing. The CGI justice league mustache was worth it because Cavill’s “Fallout” bathroom fight is legendary. Tom Cruise you’re a psycho, never change. #MissionImpossibleFallout
— Zack Sharf (@ZSharf) July 12, 2018
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE may be @TomCruise & @ChrisMcQuarrie’s THE DARK KNIGHT. This is EASILY the best active film franchise, the best action movie of the summer, and between 10 & 100 times better than ANY Marvel movie. Cruise is the greatest movie star there is, was, & EVER will be.
— Jeff Sneider (@TheInSneider) July 12, 2018
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT. This movie is sex.
— Bilge Ebiri (@BilgeEbiri) July 12, 2018
#MissionImpossibleFallout is 2.5 hours of Tom Cruise proving he’s Superman. I loved every insane minute.
— Nigel M. Smith (@nigelmfs) July 12, 2018
Mission: Impossible Fallout is relentless. It’s intense and so flat out exciting that you laugh because you can’t believe what you’re seeing. It’s incredible.
— Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) July 12, 2018
HOLY. ****.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — FALLOUT is a freakin’ cinematic shot of adrenaline to the heart.
The most complete, balanced and awe-inspiring MISSION.
They don’t make movies like this anymore — and I don’t know if we’ll ever see another star like @TomCruise in our lifetime. pic.twitter.com/VtZc5A1TcX
— Jake Hamilton (@JakesTakes) July 11, 2018
Let me let you guys in on a little film press secret: Getting to watch big movies before anybody else is cool. So cool that you tend to not be able to stop yourself from being swept up in the excitement of watching something with like-minded film geeks who all appreciate this art form as much as you do. As such, walking out of a cinema you almost always think of a movie a bit more glowingly than you do a couple of hours later when you sit down to write your review in an objective and analytical manner. Subsequently, early social media reactions should always be taken as skewing a bit more positive than the movie actually deserves. Except, it would appear, that’s not the case here.
With the full review embargo dropping a couple hours ago, critics have now gone all in on assessing the movie… and they’re still completely blown away by it. Fallout is currently sitting on an average critic score of 86% after 20 reviews on Metacritic, with 5 of them from some of the biggest publications on the planet giving the film full 100%. Here are a few snippets from the reviews:
…writer-director Christopher McQuarrie’s Fallout is the closest the series has come to Ethan Hunt’s own Skyfall or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – the sequel that fills in the IMF agent’s personal backstory and the emotional sacrifices he’s made chasing the lunatic villains of the world. It’s a film with not just action, but stakes. Hunt’s rubber mask drops long enough to give us a glimpse of the humanity underneath.The plot of Fallout is too elaborate to possibly spoil. At times, I could barely make sense of all of its moving watchworks parts. Thankfully McQuarrie and Cruise just keep tightening the vise and throwing jaw-dropping set pieces at you like confetti: skydives through lightning storms, adrenalized Ronin-like car chases, hand-to-hand brawls in toilet stalls, and the sort of vertiginous, cliffhanging scrapes with certain death that elevate it all above any of its tentpole peers. At this point in Hollywood’s franchise-fatigue cycle, it’s rare to see a sequel (nevermind a fifth one) one-upping itself. Fallout is a unique exception that defies our seen-it-all cynicism. It’s the kind of pure, straight-no-chaser pop fun that not only keeps taking your breath away over and over again, it restores your occasionally shaky faith in summer blockbusters.
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 motion-sensitive vault floor with Brian De Palma holding the strings.Beyond these highlights, which get more and more spectacular as the film goes on, it has tricks in its story you don’t see coming, and even the several scenes in, yep, dingy basements — McQuarrie is the most subterranean schemer in the business — pay off with nifty reversals that justify every beat of their seemingly drab exposition.
…This finale has got to rank among the most eye-poppingly gorgeous action sequences ever shot: huge hat-tip to the generally amazing British cinematographer Rob Hardy (Annihilation) for saving such lavish visual treats for dessert.
Man oh man, what a ride. If there’s a way to have more pure, exhilarating fun in a movie theater, I am not aware of it. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the type of movie where you leave the theater with so much adrenaline pumping through your veins that you just don’t know what to do with yourself after.There was a time when I thought I wanted Tom Cruise to go back to making dramatic movies and really act. I have changed my mind. I just want Cruise to keep making Mission: Impossible movies. When Cruise is 85, I want the plot to be “to save Earth, Ethan Hunt has to go get Elon Musk’s space car because a remote detonator is inside, and drive it back to Earth,” and then Cruise actually gets in a spaceship and goes and gets it. I’m in! Sign me up for six more of these movies.
Of course there are some less-than-enthused critics, but for the most part, these are folks who have never been fans of this franchise so that’s not too surprising. Even so, these people aren’t getting anywhere close to lambasting the movie and almost universally agree that their perceived criticisms can still be overlooked thanks to Cruise and co’s incredible action efforts. Personally, as somebody who has loved this franchise since day one (although, MI2 was admittedly quite the stumble), I’m beyond pumped to see this now. Luckily, that won’t be too long from now as Mission: Impossible – Fallout is scheduled to release locally on 27 July.
The best intentions often come back to haunt you. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team (Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) along with some familiar allies (Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan) in a race against time after a mission gone wrong. Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, and Vanessa Kirby also join the dynamic cast with filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie returning to the helm.
Last Updated: July 13, 2018
RinceThis
July 13, 2018 at 15:14
Awesome! I need to go say hi to the cast, they’re in Paris…
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 15:23
You’re the same height as Tom Cruise, so why not?
RinceThis
July 13, 2018 at 15:24
really?
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 15:24
He’s about 5 foot fuckall, and from what I hear, so are you.
You guys have so much in common!
RinceThis
July 13, 2018 at 15:25
And trump is a rude twat, which you are too, you have so much in common!
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 15:26
We also both have fabulous hair.
You’re right, I should totally hit him up.
“Yo, T-rump!”
GooseZA
July 13, 2018 at 15:24
Hmmm… but what if I didn’t enjoy Mad Max: Fury Road?
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 15:25
Then, in layman’s terms, you’re weird.
GooseZA
July 13, 2018 at 15:28
They drove all the way across the desert, then turned around and drove back.
*shrugs*
It was ok. Some of the scenes looked amazing (flaming guitar car for example) but I thought the movie was massively overrated. It was enjoyable but people were going on like it was the second coming.
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 15:29
I actually rather agree with you.
It was one long action sequence and the story was uber thin.
After all the hype, I had expected more.
GooseZA
July 13, 2018 at 15:30
I appreciate it from a technical point of view, the physical stunts etc. Incredible. But ja, didn’t get the hype otherwise.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 13, 2018 at 15:33
You gotta see it for what it was intended to be. An epic,long-ass, excellent showcase of action movie prowess.
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 15:49
Like Goose mentions, I can also appreciate the technical POV behind it and all that.
But I’ve never really been a fan of movies with thin stories.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 13, 2018 at 15:55
Of course, you have a deeper understanding of movies than I wish to have. My flavour is a bit more of the switch-your-brain-off type
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 16:05
Nah dude, it’s got nothing to do with “deeper understanding” or anything highfalutin like that. I just love great stories. No matter what shape or form they take.
I didn’t hate Mad Max, not by a long shot. But I also didn’t love it as much as everyone else, mainly due to the hype. After hearing everyone go on about how great it was, I expected a great story and in the end it was something quite simple.
Dresden
July 13, 2018 at 16:15
Here you guys are, discussing this movie fervently, while I haven’t even seen it yet :/
Dresden
July 13, 2018 at 16:15
Here you guys are, discussing this movie fervently, while I haven’t even seen it yet :/
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 16:23
It’s definitely worth watching, please don’t let my comments above put you off from it.
Just temper your expectations, don’t give in to the hype (like I did).
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 16, 2018 at 12:47
SPOILER ALERT
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 16, 2018 at 12:38
Well, in a barren wasteland where things are brought back to simplicity, can we expect complicated events?
Original Heretic
July 16, 2018 at 13:07
Very good point. Still doesn’t change how I felt about it, though.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 16, 2018 at 13:14
Of course, to each their own 🙂
Kervyn Cloete
July 13, 2018 at 15:59
Exactly. I’ve never quite understood this criticism leveled at action movies. We don’t judge historical dramas or rom-coms on their action scenes or lack thereof, so why do we judge action movies when they don’t tell a complex story?
The Raid is one of the most incredible action movies ever made, and its story is literally just “Punch all these people until we make it out the front door of this building”.
This is not to say that action movies can just have bad stories, but there’s a big difference between a bad story and a simple story. Fury Road’s very simple story is crammed full of themes and archetypes, and characters that offer introspection. And they get up to some of the most insane action stuntwork ever captured on film.
Original Heretic
July 13, 2018 at 16:07
Dredd.
Awesome action, good story.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 16, 2018 at 12:47
Still need to watch that. My dad, till this day, remembers the first Judge Dredd and reminds me every week about how bad that movie was and why I made him watch it. It scarred him.
Original Heretic
July 16, 2018 at 13:12
Don’t even THINK about the Stallone version.
The new one is bloody spectacular.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 16, 2018 at 12:39
I am happy that we agree on something for once lol
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
July 13, 2018 at 15:32
4DX HERE I COME