When you think of 'Mission Impossible', everyone thinks of the theme tune because it's so iconic, but fallout offers a lot more to the franchise and adds in plenty of twists and surprises throughout to really make this film stand out in the franchise. Many have even claimed that this is the best film in the franchise - with the film receiving 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.6 rating from IMDB. So it seems as if this film is the real deal, but these reviews aren't always representative of everyone's opinions. Here are my thoughts on Mission Impossible: Fallout...
I'll begin with what I liked about the film. Firstly, the film introduced not only the characters, but the plot and the general feel to the film in a really impressive manner. The audience were thrown straight into the action that this film is typically known for, I found myself feeling tense and nervous as to how the shootout would play out and what would happen to the characters. And then surprised when I found out what happened to them! The characters were also established well, right from the beginning we had a good idea of not only the different types of characters in the film, but also their personalities and the relationships that they shared with each other. Obviously we were introduced to the main character, Ethan Hunt and this slight focus on his character really gave us, as an audience, an immersive and personal feel to his personality - almost as if he was a friend of the ours. I also felt that the wedding ceremony at the beginning of the film was really effective, not only was the 'enemy' the vicar but it was really surprising and slightly mysterious to hear the characters talking and then suddenly the traditional "do you take..." to go off track to become more sinister. One of the best things about this film was the moods and feelings that it portrayed to the audience, a variety of tension, mystery and action. The film was able to execute and relay these emotions to the audience perfectly, through the great audio choices to simple camera angles and voice overs. The different emotions in this film were portrayed really well to us and left us constantly excited about what would happen and guessing as to how certain events would play out. The different emotions shown by the characters were relayed to the audience amazingly well too, we could tell that the characters were genuinly surprised and used great facial expressions to really add to the reality and feel of the current scene. This seemed to really boost how the general emotions of the film were depicted. Speaking of characters, I feel that there was a great variety of mysterious characters who seemed to change quite a lot. However I actually feel that this had a really positive impact, as it kept the characters secret and unpredictable - therefore adding to the twists during the film.
This film had a lot of plot twists too, and that's not an over-exaggeration! But I don't feel that they were over the top, there were quite a few plot twists that really seemed to add to the overall energy of the film and really helped the audience to engage with the film, as it kept the plot refreshing and exciting. Many of these plot twists were unpredictable too, such as when the target - Lark is killed, this completely opened up the plot and again, helped the film to be unpredictable and confusing as to how to plot would develop simultaneously. The film also was able to utilise special effects to help with the enjoyable factor of the film too, through humour and experiments with audio, the film was able to engage and build a good relationship with the audience. For example during Ethan's skydive he mocked August for being afraid of the lightning, then funnily enough he is struck by lightning, but after the blast, the sound from the film completely disappeared and created a really scary and nervy effect to the film. I really liked this sense of experimentation with the audio during the film and it also shows that the film wasn't holding back either and that the boundaries were challenged. Within any good action film there are always plenty of tense and exciting fights, and this film didn't disappoint. There were a lot of heart racing fight scenes that were spread throughout the film and these were done really well, not only were the characters smart in the ways in which they fought but changes in locations and speed was also especially effective too. Some fight scenes involve quick, intense battles, whereas other fights were a bit slower and played out longer. I really like how the film played around by mixing up different elements during these critical scenes, they were expertly done.
As well as fight scenes, the film had plenty of action and chase scenes which were both engaging and breathtaking too. Many of these scenes didn't seem to go to plan which added to the authenticity of the missions and made them more more intense and fun to watch! Races against time to save Solomon from drowning and to diffuse a set of nuclear bombs not only helped to make the plot more intense but they also helped to add to the thrill of the film and to help it live up to its action theme, with a little help from the awesome choices of audio too! But it wasn't just action scenes that were well executed during the film either, I particularly liked the scene where Ethan is spotted by a female police office who is clearly nervous and ends up conversing with her in French before ultimately saving her life from the enemy who turned up. Interesting little scenes like that really helped to create an ecosystem feeling to the film, where it wasn't just the main plot that we were experiencing as an audience, but seeing the general life and day to day job of Ethan. These types of scenes also helped to create an emotional relationship with the film and made a change from the normal 'fast music and quick perspective shots to update the viewers' that the film typically used - but don't get me wrong, the film was able to balance these different emotions very well through varieties of special effects similar to the camera angles and shots.
The characters an actors in the film were amazing, I feel that they all had a sense of relevance and importance to the film and their characteristics and relationships together were presented very well which was great to experience and really helped to immerse me in the plot too. I especially liked the main villain's character though, Solomon. It reminded me of Heath Ledgers insane performance of the Joker in the Dark Night Rises, Sean Harris played this character really well and really helped to give him a crazy/mysterious effect which had a really effective impact for the audience whenever he was on the screen.
The film was great, there's no denying that. But even the best films have some problems, and this film is no exception. My main problem with the film is that the ending section of the film in the helicopters just didn't seem to be very realistic at all, intense yes, but not realistic and this slightly ruined the mood of the film. When another helicopter is rolling down a mountain and hits your helicopter it's game over, sorry! But I guess that wouldn't make the film as enjoyable. There were small elements of the plot that seemed to be unrealistic, with the ending being the easiest to notice and even though it didn't ruin the film, it did have an impact. I also really enjoyed the variety of characters yes, but I honestly wasn't impressed with some of the choices of dialogue that were involved in some of the smaller characters conversations, they seemed to be very lifeless and generic and they didn't add anything to the characters at all. They only seemed to bridge the gap between the main characters and the 'others'.
I was also slightly confused as to why the film relied on the audience believing and simply accepting what was happening during the plot too, there was a sense of mystery but for some scenes it just seemed to be a bit too typical in how Ethan managed to get away or how he miraculously survived. I understood the plot, but some other audiences may not be able to have gotten to grips with it as quickly as I did. There were also a lot of typical action film sequences in the film too, such as being in the right place at the right time to find another character or to evade the police and this was just fairly boring and dry to see these typical sequences - even though they were executed well.
Overall, I would give this film a 9. I think that it was able to relay emotions and get my heart rate going expertly, the plot and side stories during the film were really enjoyable and it was obvious as to why this film is so popular with other people too. But not only was the plot well executed, but the characters and cinematography was done excellently too, I thought that Tom Cruise and Sean Harris were really the standout actors in this film and they really helped to add emotion and excitement to the already great scenes! There were some small issues with the film, of course, but overall I really enjoyed the film and I will probably be going back to watch it again - although the 2:27 hour length of the film caused quite a sting on my day!
Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did watching the film and writing this review! I hope you have a lovely day! :)
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