Movie Review: Tom Cruise tackles another ‘Mission: Impossible’ in ‘Fallout’ on FX

Very simply, “Mission: Impossible - Fallout” was the movie of the summer of 2018. And it certainly was one of the movies of that year.

In promoting the spy adventure — which FX shows Sunday, Feb. 11 — Tom Cruise said he just wanted to give the audience its money’s worth, and did he ever. For any and all complaints that there are about needless sequels, the sixth round of the “Mission” franchise is a series-best (at least to date), thanks to the know-how of Cruise and returning writer-director Christopher McQuarrie.

The picture not only offers a jaw-dropping series of action sequences, it does a deep dive into the personhood of IMF agent Ethan Hunt, as those closest to him face threats of very bad things from an enemy. That alternately sways and doesn’t sway Hunt from his mission to stop the theft of plutonium, to be used on very specifically chosen targets.

That’s the nominal plot. As for the action? Hunt makes a HALO jump out of a plane. Hunt has a major brawl with a CIA man (Henry Cavill) in a restroom. Hunt goes racing through the streets of Paris at breakneck speed. And all of it is thrilling, especially since you can see that it’s really Cruise doing it.

Also back for this mission – and neatly tying together virtually every other movie “Mission” that came before – are Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan and Alec Baldwin, with great additions in a steely Angela Bassett as an espionage boss and a lethal Vanessa Kirby as an agile killer.