This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Tom Cruise in a scene from “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.” (Chiabella James/Paramount Pictures and Skydance via AP)
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE-FALLOUT
YOU would have loved my mother.
Marie Antoinette Bernadette Grego Ruffolo was among the world’s greatest action adventure movie fans.
In her day, the very best scene (and one she chatted about for months on end) was from the original “Die Hard” in 1988 when Bruce Willis drops a C-4 explosive down an elevator shaft, kills a bunch of bad guys and wipes out part of the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.
“Welcome to the party pal!”
If my mom thought the explosions and action in “Die Hard” (or any Godzilla movie) blew her to the back of the theater, then she would be waiting in line for a week to see “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” as Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (Tom Cruise) has never been better.
For the past 22 years, since the original “Mission: Impossible” in 1996, now in his sixth outing as super sleuth Ethan Hunt, Cruise has certainly redeemed himself from his disastrous showing in last year’s “The Mummy” with a walls-out action performance that saw him performing 99.9 percent of all his own stunts, including jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft (in a halo jump) from 25,000 feet that was shot more than 20 times.
Just to get it right.
In “Fallout” Hunt leads his Impossible Mission Force (IMF) into action in this latest adventure to recover stolen nuclear plutonium.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“When an IMF mission ends badly, the world is faced with dire consequences. As Ethan Hunt takes it upon himself to fulfill his original briefing, the CIA begins to question his loyalty and his motives. Hunt finds himself in a race against time, hunted by assassins and former allies while trying to prevent a global catastrophe.”
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Rebecca Ferguson, left, and Tom Cruise in a scene from “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.” (Chiabella James/Paramount Pictures and Skydance via AP)
The reason Hunt is on the run with his team members is that he failed to capture Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) an anarchist mastermind who was the leader of the Syndicate during “Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation” back in 2015.
Enter Alec Baldwin as Alan Hunley, the former CIA Director who went on to become the IMF Secretary at the conclusion of “Rogue Nation” who defends Hunt against
Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett), the new CIA Director who is after Hunt’s scalp.
Slone brings in the heavy guns with August Walker (Henry Cavill), a CIA assassin who is let loose to eliminate Hunt and the IMF Team.
IMF returnees include Benjamin “Benji” Dunn (Simon Pegg) as the technical computer wizard and the exceptionally cool Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell. Rounding out the IMF Force is Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, a former MI6 agent who joined Hunt’s team during Rogue Nation.
We also get a brief appearance by the seldom seen Michelle Monaghan as Julia Meade-Hunt, Ethan’s ex-wife.
Written for the screen and directed by the superb Christopher McQuarrie, “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” is an adrenaline-pumping thrill ride, 100 percent action with several amazing set pieces, including Cruise’s Hunt on the run at top sprint as he leaps off one building to another.
If you watch closely, will see where, in truth, Cruise brakes his right ankle, yet still finishes the scene.
Another great set piece is a knock-down fight teaming August and Hunt against a lone assassin … and a later helicopter ride of your life.
The only negative of this film is the “no show” of Jeremy Renner as CIA operative William Brandt who was exceptional in “Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol.” Due to a scheduling conflict with his filming on the Avengers sequels, as the archer known as “Hawkeye,” Renner had to drop out of “Fallout” and he is sorely missed.
Yet at the heart of the “Mission: Impossible-Fallout” and each of the series’ films is the intellectual twists and political intrigue at the very end and this one has it in spades.
“Fallout” has lush cinematography with great location shots in Queenstown. New Zealand, London, England and Forsand, Norway … and not to forget Cruise’s Hunt zipping around (in a souped-up motorcycle sans helmet) the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, one of the most famous monuments in Paris, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées.“Mission: Impossible-Fallout” is, without question, this summer’s very best action adventure movie—one that my dear departed mother would have relished.
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at theruffolos@readingruffolos.com.