Moustache!

by Thom Yee

Mission: Impossible  — Fallout images courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Of all of the Mission:  Impossible movies that I liked (which is all but the second one), I have to admit that the last one, 2015’s Mission:  Impossible — Rogue Nation by director Christopher McQuarrie, is the one I probably like the least.  For all of its strengths, Rogue Nation, unlike most of its Mission:  Impossible predecessors, just didn’t have that one scene or concept that blew me away to the point that it made a real difference in the way I look at modern action movies.  It just didn’t have an equivalent to Tom Cruise narrowly avoiding detection in the vault at CIA headquarters or Tom Cruise narrowly avoiding an explosive death at the hands of an enemy drone strike or Tom Cruise narrowly avoiding falling to his death while sprinting down the tallest man-made structure in the world.  To be fair, it also didn’t have some of the least engaging, worst-looking action scenes in series history, and to be even more fair, of all of the Mission:  Impossibles, Rogue Nation is also probably the most solid and consistent purely as an action movie, which is something I’ve grown to feel about it in the years since I’ve seen it rather than something I felt about it after first seeing it.  And now we’re here with Mission:  Impossible — Fallout, the first Mission movie to continue with a director, Christopher McQuarrie again, and the closest thing we’ve seen so far in the series to a direct sequel. Continue reading →