- UK release: July 2018
- Director: Christopher McQuarrie · Writer: Christopher McQuarrie
- Studio / distributor: Paramount Pictures; Skydance Media; Bad Robot
- Genre: Espionage action thriller · Runtime: 147 minutes (BBFC 12A)
- Main cast: Tom Cruise (Top Gun, Mission: Impossible) as Ethan Hunt; Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) as August Walker; Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Greatest Showman) as Ilsa Faust; Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Star Trek) as Benji Dunn
- IMDb: 7.7 / 10 · Rotten Tomatoes: 97% critics / 88% audience · My rating: 8.5 / 10
A franchise that started in 1996 with Brian De Palma and a CIA vault now arrives at its sixth film, and the surprising thing is that the most recent entries are the strongest. Fallout is the first time the series has kept the same director two films running: Christopher McQuarrie, who took over for Rogue Nation in 2015 and clearly liked the job enough to come back. That continuity shows. Where the early films swapped directors and house styles every time out, this is a deliberate sequel, picking up threads rather than rebooting the tone, and it plays like a film made by people who finally know exactly what this series is for.
The setup
A mission to recover stolen plutonium goes wrong, and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) makes the call that puts his people ahead of the cargo. The fallout, in every sense, is that three nuclear cores are loose, a fractured terror network wants them, and the CIA no longer trusts the IMF to clean up its own mess. Hunt is handed a minder, August Walker (Henry Cavill), a blunt instrument sent to make sure the job gets done by any means. From there it is a chase across Paris, London and the mountains of Kashmir, with old faces resurfacing and the usual problem of nobody being quite who they claim. The plot is dense without being clever for its own sake; it exists to keep moving Hunt from one impossible spot to the next, and it does that with real economy.
The cast
Cruise remains the engine. At this point Ethan Hunt is less a character than a force of will, and the appeal is watching a fifty-something leading man genuinely do the thing on screen, sprinting across London rooftops and flying the helicopter himself. Cavill is the smartest piece of new casting the series has made: heavy, unhurried and faintly contemptuous, he gives Hunt a physical counterweight the earlier films never had, and the much-discussed moment where he cocks his fists before a fight has the deadpan menace the role needs. Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust carries over from Rogue Nation with her loyalties still pleasingly unreadable, and she is given real agency rather than a romantic holding pattern. Simon Pegg’s Benji has grown from comic relief into the team’s nervous conscience, and Ving Rhames and Rebecca Ferguson keep the ensemble feeling lived-in. Even the returning villain is played with a quiet, clipped malice that suits the colder register of this entry.
The craft
This is where McQuarrie earns his reputation. The action is built around practical stunts and shot to let you see them, with Rob Hardy’s camera holding wide and steady where a lesser film would cut the geography into confetti. The HALO jump, the bathroom brawl, the Paris motorcycle chase against traffic, the closing helicopter pursuit: each is staged for clarity and weight, so you always know where everyone is and what it costs them. Eddie Hamilton’s editing keeps the momentum building rather than just fast, ramping the tension in long stretches before the release. Lorne Balfe’s score reworks Lalo Schifrin’s theme into something more driving and orchestral, and it does a lot of the rewatch heavy lifting. The film is long at 147 minutes and barely lets you feel it.
How it stacks up
The obvious comparison is Ghost Protocol, the 2011 entry that reset the series after the muddier third film, and Rogue Nation, McQuarrie’s own first go. Fallout is the more sustained of the three, trading the Dubai-tower set-piece thrill of Ghost Protocol for a film that escalates as a single unbroken climb. Against the genre at large it stands with Skyfall and The Dark Knight as a blockbuster that takes its own seriousness in good faith without becoming grim, and it answers the Bourne films, whose shaky immediacy it pointedly rejects in favour of legible, old-fashioned coverage. Where Bond reinvents its lead and Bourne reinvents its style, this series has settled on doing the stunt for real and shooting it cleanly, and on that narrow promise it is now the most dependable action franchise running.
Critics versus the rest of us
The critics are close to unanimous, sitting at 97%, with audiences a notch behind at 88%, and for once the rave is warranted rather than inflated. The praise lands on the practical spectacle and McQuarrie’s command of escalation, and that is exactly right. If there is a gap between the press and the rest of us, it is that the plotting, all double agents and masks and shifting allegiances, can tip into convolution if you stop paying attention, and the relentlessness can leave you slightly wrung out rather than elated. None of that dents the achievement; it just explains why the audience number is sensible rather than ecstatic.
Verdict
This is the series operating at full stretch, and it rewards exactly the things I value in this kind of film: real stunts shot so you can admire them, momentum that never sags, and a score that pulls you back for another viewing. It is not flawless, the story is busier than it needs to be and the emotional stakes are more asserted than felt, but as a piece of sustained action filmmaking there is very little to touch it this decade. It earns its reputation and rewards the rewatch, and it sits a half-step below my favourites only because spectacle this intense is slightly more exhausting than it is joyful. 8.5⁄10.
Availability: On general release in UK cinemas now. Worth the largest screen you can find; an IMAX showing does justice to the helicopter finale.
Update
Added since this review first appeared: McQuarrie stayed on for the two-part Dead Reckoning, beginning in 2023, confirming Fallout as the start of a single long arc rather than a high point the series would struggle to follow. Fallout has settled into a wide consensus as one of the best action films of its era and, for many, the peak of the run so far. It is now available on disc and digital, and streams on Paramount+ depending on your region.
BBFC content advice
Rated 12A by the BBFC for moderate violence, injury detail, infrequent strong language. The notes below may contain spoilers.
Violence: Moderate violence includes shootings, stabbings and hand-to-hand combat with crunchy punches and kicks. The focus of these sequences is on fast-paced action rather than any undue dwelling on the details of the violence or bloodshed.
Injury detail: In the aftermath of an incident involving an aircraft, a man has burn injuries on the side of his face and another man has a bloodied head.
Threat: There is also moderate threat and mild innuendo.
Language: There is infrequent strong language (‘f**k’), as well as milder bad language which includes uses of ‘ass’, ‘shit’, ‘son of a bitch’, ‘God’, ‘hell’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘damn’.
Source: British Board of Film Classification (bbfc.co.uk).
