There aren’t many film franchises that produce arguably their best work in their sixth instalment, but Mission: Impossible may have done just that. Fallout is a non-stop, adrenaline-fuelled action masterclass, that also doesn’t disappoint when it comes to plot and character.

Premise: Two years after capturing Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team are attempting to round up the remnants of Lane’s terrorist organisation, the Syndicate. But when Hunt’s questionable choice during a mission has disastrous consequences, the CIA assigns August Walker (Henry Cavill) to Hunt’s team to clean up his mess.

Review:

One of the things that’s always been interesting about the Mission: Impossible franchise is the decision to bring in a new director for each film, to give each instalment a very different feel and tone from the last. Brian De Palma’s first film (1996) was a suspense-driven old-school thriller, while John Woo’s second instalment (2000) was a barmy, stylised, wire-fu action-fest. In 2006, J.J. Abrams introduced more of a team element into the third chapter, and also created arguably the best villain of the series with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davian. After that, Brad Bird’s Ghost Protocol (2011) attempted to subvert the tropes by having the entire IMF disavowed, forcing the team to rely on faulty gadgets and no support. But for me, it wasn’t until Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed Rogue Nation (2015) that the series truly fulfilled its potential.

Rogue Nation had everything you’d expect from a Mission: Impossible film – great stunts and action sequences, impossible heists, and a globe trotting race against time – but it also brought something new to the game: Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust. Up until then, the role of the female lead in a Mission: Impossible film was effectively just to be the damsel in distress (Thandie Newton in M:I-2 and Michelle Monaghan in M:I-3 being particularly obvious examples), but Ilsa Faust changed all that, showing herself to be Ethan Hunt’s equal in every measure. The added mystery over her true motivations and loyalties only served to make her by far the most interesting character in the series after Cruise’s Hunt.

“…‘Fallout’ follows on directly from ‘Rogue Nation’ in terms of plot and character…”

But the focus on introducing and developing Ilsa Faust’s character in Rogue Nation did mean that there was less screen time available to develop other ideas. The end result was that I did feel that the villain, Sean Harris’ rogue agent Solomon Lane, felt a little underdeveloped, which meant that although Rogue Nation was great, it wasn’t quite the “perfect” Mission: Impossible film for me. So when I heard that Christopher McQuarrie had been persuaded by Tom Cruise to come back to write and direct the sixth film, I was really excited to see where he could go when he didn’t have to spend half the film introducing and creating Ilsa Faust.

In this respect, Fallout does not disappoint. McQuarrie has created, in effect, a two-part Mission: Impossible film, as Fallout follows on directly from Rogue Nation in terms of plot and character. Plot-wise, the story is a direct continuation from Rogue Nation, as Hunt and his IMF team of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) continue to track down the remnants of Lane’s Syndicate, who are now in league with the mysterious nuclear extremist known only as John Lark. Character-wise, everyone from Rogue Nation is back (with the exception of Jeremy Renner who was unavailable), including Alec Baldwin as the new IMF Secretary and, of course, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. In a stroke of genius, McQuarrie even found a way to reintroduce Faust that still retains much of her original air of mystery in terms of her true agenda and loyalties, without it feeling forced (given where her character ends up at the end of Rogue Nation).

“…produces set-piece after set-piece that blurs the line between great physical stunt work & seamless CGI…”

McQuarrie does introduce a few new characters, most noticeably Henry Cavill as August Walker, the CIA’s “hammer” to contrast Hunt as the IMF’s “scalpel”. Cavill makes an impressive addition to the cast, and his antagonistic relationship with Hunt feels like it comes from a believable, professional place. Cavill’s CIA boss, Erica Sloane, is played by Angela Bassett, who does what she can with her limited screen time, while the other main new addition is Vanessa Kirby as the arms dealer known as the “White Widow”, who also has an interesting connection to a character from a previous Mission: Impossible film.

Because McQuarrie doesn’t need to spend too much time introducing new main characters, he’s free to focus more on the plot and the action, and it’s in this respect that Fallout really delivers. Moving away from the more contrived and showy stunts of some of the previous films (such as Ghost Protocol’s Burj Khalifa stunt, which always felt needlessly tacked on to the plot), Fallout instead focuses on producing some of the best “grounded” action set-pieces that I’ve seen in recent years. Whether it be a HALO freefall skydive, a helicopter chase over the mountains, or a motorbike pursuit through a packed city centre, Fallout produces set-piece after set-piece that blurs the line between great physical stunt work and seamless CGI. It also includes a bathroom fight that is one of the most impressively choreographed fight scenes to appear in a major Hollywood blockbuster in a long time.

“…‘Fallout’ is a much darker, more serious affair…”

One of Christopher McQuarrie’s conditions to agreeing to Tom Cruise’s request to come back and direct a second film was that he wanted to change the tone and look completely, so that it felt like the series actually had changed directors between the fifth and sixth instalments. So McQuarrie brought in a new composer for the score (Lorne Balfe) and a new cinematographer (Rob Hardy), and this has undeniably given Fallout a completely different feel from Rogue Nation. But it’s not just the aesthetics of the films that are so different, it’s the entire tone as well. Rogue Nation had an almost playful tone to a lot of its spy action, whereas Fallout is a much darker, more serious affair. Instead of giving Hunt physical challenges to over come (like can he hold his breath for over two minutes), Fallout gives Hunt a series of ever more challenging moral dilemmas, as he is repeatedly forced to question how far he will go, and what he will sacrifice, for the greater good.

The overall effect of the more grounded action sequences and the darker tone mean that there is a genuine sense of peril and jeopardy in Fallout, where it feels like the main characters are truly in mortal danger. Right from the pre-title sequence, it feels like the gloves are off, and anything could happen.

Fallout ties together plot threads from four of the previous five Mission: Impossible films, yet is also a film that you could happily watch even if you’d never seen any of the earlier instalments. It’s a masterclass in staging and filming action sequences, in a way which seems to utilise the best that practical stunt work and CGI has to offer. It has a plot that’s full of tension and moral dilemmas, and characters struggling with impossible choices. In short, it may just be the perfect Mission: Impossible film.