It’s been a massive 22 years since Tom Cruise first brought Mission: Impossible to the screen.
That’s more than two decades of suspending from wires, running at high speed and blowing things up.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the sixth and latest addition to the franchise – and it’s as big as they come.
The film follows Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his team of spies as they attempt to prevent a terrorist organisation from detonating a series of nuclear weapons.
The twisty plot sees Hunt once again come into contact with MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and their mutual enemy Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).
Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are back as Benji and Luther, though fellow team member Brandt (Jeremy Renner) fails to make an appearance. Also returning to the franchise is Hunt’s wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) – her first appearance since a cameo in the fourth film.
There are a few notable additions to the cast this time around.
Angela Bassett plays Erica Sloan, head of the CIA and Vanessa Kirby plays the enigmatic White Widow, who may or may not be the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave’s character in the first film.
But the newbie with the biggest impact – figuratively and literally – is Superman himself, Henry Cavill.
Cavill is truly a beast of a man and towers above Cruise in his somewhat adversarial role as CIA agent Walker.
The action in Fallout is top-notch.
Cruise has never shied away from crazy stunt work – scaling the Burj Khalifa and hanging onto the outside of a plane during takeoff spring to mind – and this film is no exception.
There’s a frenetic, intense car/motorbike chase through the busy streets of Paris – including the multi-lane roundabout surrounding the Arc de Triomphe – a dizzying HALO jump, a high-speed foot chase on London rooftops (including the incident which resulted in Cruise breaking his ankle) and a daring helicopter pursuit in the Himalayan mountains.
Fallout is entertainment plus and fans of the franchise will not be disappointed.
Ranking the films is a difficult task, but Fallout probably comes third behind MI3 and Ghost Protocol.