Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Review by Nicholas Souder

I’ve always wanted to see a sequel to Face/Off where Nicolas Cage’s Caster Troy and John Travolta’s impression of Nic Cage as Caster Troy would have a weird, adventure heist film that defies physics, logic, and common sense. It’ll never be made but I no longer need it. In Mission: Impossible - Fallout Tom Cruise made a movie so much more absurd than my idea for F/O2: Troys on the Run by simply asking writer/director Christopher McQuarrie “what will give me the biggest adrenaline boner?”

The film features a HALO jump that is so insane Cruise practiced the stunt for an entire year. It also has Cruise and Superman in an over the top John Woo-esque bathroom fight, a car chase scene through France, a foot chase in London where Mr. Scientology broke his foot jumping from roof to roof then got up to keep running, and of course bumper helicopters over a mountain range. 

There are plot points about nuclear bombs being recovered, a lady and her brother, Alec Baldwin thin again, Simon Pegg & Ving Rhames being coworker buddies, Angela Bassett underused as the boss, and a lot of stuff/people from the other movies are involved. I have only seen the first Mission: Impossible and Fallout, which is number six. Also the teenager with the plastic bag from American Beauty is grown up in it as a doctor. 

Films are a team effort, and I feel bad for discounting everyone else, but no matter how you break it down the entire movie is Mr. Ex Nicole Kidman. I don’t agree with his cult religion nor do I think he is a great actor; I don’t give a shit about the next Mission: Surprisingly Possible, Top Gun 2, or whatever else he is doing. 

But when you can’t sleep and the idea of watching Midsommar on Prime twice in one day is too much, watching the most ridiculously entertaining action film since Charlize Theron drove a War Machine through the post apocalyptic Australian Outback (for the record Mad Max: Fury Road is a more believable film) does not get a second thought. For two hours I was so distracted I forgot my anxiety existed. It goes beyond the concept of popcorn flicks: Tom Cruise makes Xanax movies, which is terribly ironic because he and the Clear Boys are very much against prescription drugs. 

I actively dreamt of watching Cage and Travolta as Troy and Troy. Thanks to Mission: Impossible - Fallout I have a new dream: Face/Off Three: Season of the Caster Troys. In the third F/O installment Travolta resurrects the corpse of Cage so that they could stop vaguely Eastern European terrorists from blowing up The Staple Centers during the NBA finals. Flip the script so the baddies are now the heroes or vice versa, which are simple concepts too difficult for Mr. Ex Katie Holmes & company. It’s an idea flirted with in M:i6 by Sean Harris’ character who wants to destroy the governments of the world for their corruption and make the people who work for them look in the mirror. But this isn’t a tense, political thriller with lingering ideas meant to stick with you for weeks afterward. This is a Mission: Impossible movie. 

Tom Cruise films remind me of Stephen Still lyrics, which after a quick Google search I realized didn’t belong to Fleetwood Mac but regardless they go: “And if you can't be with the one you love, honey/Love the one you're with.”