Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
2018
****

I didn’t love or hate the first Mission:Impossible film when it came out in 1996. It was one of many big screen reboots of a classic old television show that got some things wrong and got some thing right. Mission:Impossible II was dreadful and in some respects the franchise should have ended there but it made money, so they made more. To their credit, Mission:Impossible III was a step up and many problems from the first two films were corrected. It didn’t do as well as the first films but it was good, a nice place to leave it I thought, no real need to continue. However, in a brilliant act of redemption, they made Ghost Protocol and injected the series with new life. The brilliant Rogue Nation followed and suddenly a franchise that should really have died a quiet death is one of the most dependable and anticipated films of the decade. With 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout they have done it again and have bettered the two previous films. Breaking with tradition, they have hired the same director and have continued the story from the previous film – something I wouldn’t have thought was a good idea but has turned out to be quite the opposite. Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is far more mature then he was in the previous films, is has a sense of humour and isn’t completely bulletproof. He’s human. Killing off the team in the first film was always my biggest gripe about the series but now IMF has a new team with Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Alec Baldwin returning once more. Mission:Impossible was always meant as a team effort and it is finally as it should be. Michelle Monaghan also reprises her role after first appearing in Mission:Impossible III, then cameoing in Ghost Protocol but being absent in Rogue nation. Sadly Jeremy Renner is missing from Fallout, the film being the second blockbuster sequel of 2018 in which he is absent with little onscreen explanation as to why (the other being Avengers: Infinity War). Interestingly, Sean Harris is back as Solomon Lane – the villain with the annoying voice from the previous film. His story is developed further in Fallout to reveal a larger organisation at play, which I think is a great move. Henry Cavill and Angela Bassett join the story as CIA operatives – Cavill taking the role as apology for stealing Cruise’s part in 2015’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Bassett redeeming herself after featuring in the god-awful Olympus/London Has Fallen films. Vanessa Kirby also joins the cast in an interesting role that looks like it could be reoccurring within the franchise. If you listen carefully to her speech when she first appears, she seems to thank the previous head of her organisation, her late mother ‘Max’. While never confirmed, I wonder whether she is referring to Max from the very first Mission: Impossible film, played by Vanessa Redgrave. Everyone is on good form but truth be told, Cavill somewhat steals the show. The scenes involving he and Cruise are brilliant, whether they are fighting together or one another. He makes me want to grow a moustache again. What makes Fallout so enjoyable – and what sets it apart and above the previous films, is just how clever and balanced it all is. The set up is once again deemed just as important as the execution, so it is just as much about the espionage than it is about the action sequences. The ‘This is your mission, should you chose to except it..’ message is delivered by hand disguised as a book and self destructs in a puff of smoke rather than in an elaborate explosion. The action is over the top at times but it’s never unbelievable and an action such as jumping out of a window is shown as the difficult feat that it is, rather than played down. Indeed, Cruise – who does all his own stunts – actually broke his ankle while jumping from one building to another, delaying the film by eight weeks. If anything, Mission: Impossible – Fallout once and for all confirms Cruise as the ultimate action hero as every stunt is performed by him, including the incredible helicopter chase towards the end of the film. Mission: Impossible – Fallout kind of shows just how outdated the Bond films are while knocking the Bourne films out of the water. Christopher McQuarrie is a fantastic writer and the three films he’s directed before Fallout are all brilliant. I think it helps loads that he’s worked with producer J.J.Abrams and Tom Cruise several times before, so now it seems they are all on the same page and in full agreement as to where the series is going. Cruise has been modest about the film so far, stating that if Fallout does well they’ll make another and see how it goes but I believe they’ve found a recipe for success and the series has nothing to worry about if they keep on doing what they’re doing. The score is also notably improved. The dreadful Limp Bizkit version of the Mission: Impossible theme is almost a distant memory thanks to Lorne Balfe’s sleek and moody soundtrack that builds on Joe Kraemer previous efforts. It’s everything you could want from an action/thriller, it’s full of espionage and mystery, has a great cast, plenty of twists and turns and some of the best action sequences I’ve seen for a long while, while remaining intelligent and sophisticated.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Dir: Christopher McQuarrie

2015

****

1996's Mission: Impossible was like a rusty old car one would only acquire by chance, a barn find if you would. It was once a classic but this particular model is in need of serious work to get it to run again. The initial find was exciting but since its discovery it has been put back together with inferior parts by people without the relative experience, knowledge or expertise. They have put it together thinking only of the money they think they will get for it once it’s done. Brad Bird finally fixed it in 2011 with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. He let us look under the hood and let us sit in the comfy leather seats, he showed off the shiny new paintwork and paraded all those little fixtures that made it so distinct and so popular in the first place. It was lovely to see it looking like new again, better even than it had looked when first produced. A hard act to follow for director Christopher McQuarrie, so he did the only thing he could do, he lowered the roof, pressed down hard on the accelerator and took it out for a thrill-packed test drive. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames return and form the IMF team, but while Paula Patton's Jane Carter and Ethan Hunt's wife (played by Michelle Monaghan) are absent and never referenced, it has to be said they were never as likable (Paula Patton) or worked as well in the story (Michelle Monaghan) as the other team members. Enter Rebecca Ferguson as the stories 'is she good/is she bad?' counterpart to Ethan Hawk who finally gives him a run for his money. Every element a good espionage action-thriller needs in order to work is present without it feeling like it's a copy of anything else that has come before, more importantly, it's nothing like the Mission: Impossible films that have come before. It is brilliantly balanced, contemporary and classical, mysterious but action-packed. It has everything audiences enjoyed in the previous films with much more added. Fans of the original series were very happy, as the fifth film of the series finally saw the return of IMF's biggest foe, the mysterious organisation known as the Syndicate. This lead by the most evil of villains, Solomon Lane, a former M16 agent gone rogue, played by bad guy extraordinaire Sean Harris. Alec Baldwin is a new addition to the cast as CIA director Alan Hunley. He plays a key role in the story and isn't just there for the sake of having another big name attached to the series, he's quite good in fact. Someone involved in the film is clearly a fan of the BBC comedy Rev. though as it stars two of its best, Simon McBurney as the director of M16 and Tom Hollander as the British Prime Minister (from MP in In The Loop to PM in a Mission: Impossible film is quite the jump). Christopher McQuarrie seems to me to be the perfect choice of director so far in the franchise. He clearly has a good relationship with Cruise from past collaborations and knows how to get the best out of him. I admire Tom Cruise for sticking with the franchise in many respects, I've only liked two of them so far but I feel it was worth the wait. You've got to give the man credit for his perseverance, and for holding on to a moving plane for that matter.

Jack Reacher (AKA Jack Reacher: One Shot)

Dir: Christopher McQuarrie

2012

****

The loudest piece of criticism I’ve heard about 2012’s Jack Reacher is that Tom Crusie is far too short to play the fictional character who is described as 6 foot 5 inches in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. I can think of a few actors who could have played Jack Reacher just as well as Tom Crusie (and many who are taller) but to be honest I thought he did a great job. I've not read the book so I can't make a comparison but I thought the story was thrilling and rather intelligent. People who read my reviews will not be surprised at what I liked about it most though. I’ve been saying it for years and finally someone has listened - Werner Herzog is the ultimate movie villain. His performance in Jack Reacher is all the proof you need, the ‘Chew your own finger off and I’ll let you live’ scene is a million times more villainous then any Bond villain and his chilling creepiness puts most contemporary bad guys to shame with little effort. Every scene he's in he chills to the bone and you believe in him and believe the horrible things he's done and is going to do. Cruise and Robert Duval have a rather nice buddy thing going on, I actually liked Rosamund Pike’s performance for a change and David Oyelowo is great in his supporting role. Nothing is ever too over the top and the plot, action and script are always believable. The ending is very clever and very well written. I found it to be a very pleasant surprise and should be used as a reference for action/thrillers going forward.  They got the mood right, avoided many a cliché and have produced my favourite screen villain for a decade. It’s not often that subtlety is the key to an action/thriller, so I’m rather glad there are 17 books for far (as of 2012) with more already in development averaging at around one a year. Long may the novels and the films continue (if they remain this good).