Look and enjoy. It's summer's best adventure.
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Grade: A-
Director: Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacaher)
Screenplay: McQuarrie , based on the Bruce Geller TV series
Cast: Tom Cruise (Top Gun), Henry Cavill (Man of Steel)
Rating: PG 13
Runtime: 2 hr 27 min
by John DeSando
“I won’t let you down.” Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise)
He doesn’t let us down. If you’re looking for an entertaining thriller with a sympathetic hero, minimally eccentric villains, little visible blood, and chases that seem never to end, then see Mission Impossible: Fallout, the best adventure story this summer and certainly one of the best of all time.
It’s not just that Ethan Hunt can ride a motorcycle at 100 miles an hour, sky dive at 25,000 feet, and drive a helicopter; it’s just that Tom Cruise can do that and does in this film and his others. Hunt and his buddies are in the clichéd area of saving the world from a nuclear blast, as we watch the LED go slowly to zero with little chance to stop the plutonium-based bomb.
The takeaway from this dynamic thriller is that Hunt has been vulnerable more than once because of his unwillingness to sacrifice the lives of his associates, despite the fact that millions of people could live if he did sacrifice them. That charity is questioned along the way with an astute observation that his kindness is both strength and weakness. It’s nice to have the moral and intellectual challenge for the characters and us.
It works well to humanize Hunt and his helpers because the film is predominantly director Christopher McQuarrie’s chases and images of London and Paris that propel this visual banquet into greatness. Will Hunt and Cruise live to see another day? find out in an entertaining thriller made for IMAX. Spend the few extra dollars—those chases are real and up close on that giant screen. Pop corn goes well with this summer, pop-corn adventure.
Just don’t take Benji Dunn’s (Simon Pegg) advice: “I find it best not to look.” Look and enjoy.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
