Reviewed by Victor Rebikoff.
Director: Christopher McQuarrie, Paramount Pictures, M 147 Minutes.
There is never any doubt about the tremendous enjoyment everyone gets from watching the Mission Impossible movies starting with the first in 1996 and featuring the film’s foremost adrenaline-charged action star Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt.
In this sixth enthralling instalment, Cruise reteams (at age 56) with director Christopher McQuarrie following their collaboration in ‘Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation’ together with Simon Pegg as Benji and Ving Rhames as Luther, including Rebecca Ferguson as British agent Ilsa Faust.
The mission this time, should Hunt accept it, is to retrieve three plutonium cores which he, Benji and Luther bungled in securing from The Apostles terrorist group re-formed after Hunt’s capture of anarchist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) in ‘Rogue Nation’.
To ensure they complete their mission Hunt is forced to have CIA assassin August Walker (Henry Cavill –‘Justice League’) join his team, initially infiltrating the dangerous den of the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby –‘Genius’) to find the elusive John Lark.
As the plot thickens their ultimate objective is stopping Lark, an unrecognisable person (linked to Lane) and the Apostles, in deploying nuclear attacks against Mecca, Jerusalem and the Vatican which brings into the picture the intrepid Ilsa.
In between the many twists and turns in the storyline Hunt is in a race against time to avert a nuclear disaster, leading him to a snow-laden location where he meets his former wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan –‘Sleepless’).
It is at this point that Hunt comes face to face with the traitor within the team, hell-bent on activating the nuclear devices that ends up in a fierce fight to the death against a cliff-edge setting.
This would have to be one of the best films in the Mission Impossible franchise in which Cruise performs his highly-energetic role (in doing his own stunts) in a thoroughly entertaining non-stop action movie.
Apart from Cruise racing on a motorcycle in Paris and running through the streets of London he also jumps across to buildings, only this time breaking his ankle.
Not to be undone by Cruise’s awesome action scenes is the feisty Ferguson doing her own thrilling motorcycle ride and Cavill’s fearsome fight scene in the restroom combining with Cruise to overcome the Lark impersonator.
This may have been an impossible mission but nothing is impossible for the human dynamo Tom Cruise.
Vic’s Verdict: 4 Stars
