Dir; Christopher McQuarrie. Starring; Tom Cruise, Henry “Superman” Cavill, Ving Rhames. PG-13. Color. 147 min.
Once again Tom Cruise has chosen to accept his mission. The sixth installment in the franchise is loaded with action and fun. Does it live up to other installments?
Cruise plays now household name Ethan Hunt. Along with his crew of IMF specialists, they are on a hunt (no pun intended) to take down Soloman Lane (Sean Harris). Lane is a secret leftover boss from the syndicate. The syndicate was established in the previous film “Rogue Nation” as an anti IMF group. The new evil group is now called the rogue nation apostles.
August Walker (Henry Cavill) is assigned by CIA head Erica Sloan (Angela Bassett) to join Hunt’s IMF team. IMF boss Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) is not happy with this, but has no choice. Bad guy Lane and his team have gotten hold of three silver spheres containing plutonium and placed them into two bombs that he hopes to set off simultaneously in Russia. He is captured early and put into a straight jacket, but he has a much larger plan in place that the IMF team cannot anticipate.
There are several excellent action sequences. An early one-shot parachute sequence is perfectly done. You see Cruise jump out of the plane and the camera sticks with him. Then there is a visceral fight scene in a bathroom involving Cruise and Cavill that is spot on. Obviously Hollywood magic, it makes the audience feel like this brawl is really happening.
Action movies always have convenient circumstances. The flaw with “Fallout” is that it is a series of convenient circumstances. Every ten minutes you say to yourself “oh, glad that was there.” During a chase sequence, Hunt get’s his van trapped in a small alleyway while being chased by baddies. He and agent Walker kick out the front windshield and of course there is a series of motorcycles with the keys left in the bikes directly in front.
My favorite came when the IMF team captured the main baddie. They bring him to their secret underground headquarters. They activate the lights and Alec Baldwin is sitting there waiting for them. I’m envisioning Baldwin’s character sitting in the dark for four hours updating his Instagram account in hopes that Ethan and his crew show up.
The ending is beyond ridiculous. It’s a helicopter chase. The real bad guy (who I’m sure you can guess by now) has a detonator Hunt has to get before the bombs go off. The villain has a tommy gun in the back, what helicopter doesn’t, to shoot at Hunt as he chases them in his own chopper. The helicopters bang into each other as if this is a car chase. They crash. Cruise finds himself hanging off the side of a mountain. Thankfully he is wearing climbing shoes. I wear climbing shoes everyday myself just in case I’m on the side of a mountain after a helicopter crash.
The biggest flaw is that it takes over two hours to see Tom Cruise do his famous ninja run. The guy stopped doing authentic acting years ago. What am I paying for if I don’t see a montage of Cruise running for no reason? Why did it take two hours before I saw that? And why is this movie almost two-and-a-half hours?
“Fallout” will satisfy fourteen-year-old boys. It has good action, and the famous theme will get you pumped up. However, do not expect to remember this installment from any of the others.
Suck Factor: 5out of 7 (7 means your movie really SUCKS!)
Written by Byrd
The SUCK FACTOR, how it works. We have flipped the rating system upside down. If a film is classic, it gets a 0. Meaning that movie has 0 SUCKS. If a film is complete trash you must avoid at all costs, it gets a 7, meaning this movie really SUCKS!
Greg Squared Films 