We’re almost caught up.

Simon Pegg finally got to wear a mask in real life and not his own imagination.

Fallout is a rarity in Mission Impossible in that it is a direct sequel to Rogue Nation and I’m pretty sure the first actual direct sequel. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie who returns for Dead Reckoning Part 1 and written by Christopher McQuarrie who you may know from directing Mission Impossible: Fallout, Fallout once again star Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise’s stuntman Ethan Hunt. Superspy and ten year #1 kissboy of IMF Quarterly magazine.

Sean Harris is back as Solomon Lane, ex-agent turned terrorist and leader of the Syndicate who are basically evil spies who do spy things but for terrorists. There’s a very high rate of IMF agents and other government spies going rogue and turning to the other side, and at one point a character in the film actually acknowledges this and points out that it’s surprising Ethan himself hasn’t turned. After all with Hunt and these agents, the governments they work for routinely screw them over, leave them for dead, force them to do heinous things for questionable results, betray them, disavow them, and threaten them for doing their job. Shit, the whole character of Ilsa Faust is her getting repeatedly betrayed by MI6.

Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are back as Ethan’s crew as is Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. Alec Baldwin is back again now as the IMF Secretary and he’s practicing shooting people on set for his big performance in a few years from now. Angela Bassett plays CIA Director Erika Sloane, while Henry Cavill is here as August Walker of the CIA. Vanessa Kirby plays Alanna Mitsopolis and damn is she gorgeous. I bet she doesn’t get through this film without smooching all over Tom Cruise at least once.

One thing I’ve really liked about the Mission Impossible films is you constantly wonder how they’re going to take things up a notch for the next film and then they do it. We’re in the world of double-crosses, triple-crosses, quadruple-crosses, and maybe even the mythical quintuple-cross. Everyone’s playing four dimensional chess now that we’re talking about leaders of spy agencies and groups of well-trained, seasoned spies going up against other equally well-trained, seasoned, groups of spies.

I ended up watching this twice because the first time I sat through about two hours while falling asleep through most of it. Not because it’s boring but because of a stressful week at my work. And then I sat through the whole thing while fully awake and realized just how much of it I didn’t see the first time. It’s impressive seeing a film with this big of a cast also have character work so well around each other. Everyone plays their part and plays it well.

Also incredibly impressive to see characters playing other characters disguised as themselves. Very disappointed that Alec Baldwin decided to make this his last movie in the series.

Rating: A