Mission Impossible 6: When Tom Cruise Stunts in Paris

The release of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Count Part 1” is fast approaching. Finally, after many postponements due to COVID. Await Ethan Hunt’s return to cinema, inviting you to revisit his previous opus, from the staging style to the themes, highlights.

• Mission Impossible: When Tom Cruise first breathed on us
• Mission Impossible 2: When Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle under his feet
• Mission Impossible 3: When Tom Cruise met the saga’s best villain
• Mission Impossible 4: When Tom Cruise made us dizzy
• Mission Impossible 5: When Tom Cruise took a plane not like everyone else

A booster shot session continues with episode six, again directed by Christopher McQuarrie, where Tom Cruise takes on Superman and the atmosphere of Paris in a Dantesque chase – SPOILERS ALERT!!!

This is a small revolution that happened behind the scenes of this feature film. A nice stab at the contract originally set by Tom Cruise, who wanted Alien, each Mission: Impossible offers a different director and carries a paw.

Based on the success of Rogue Nation and the fruitful collaboration with its star, Christopher McQuarrie became the first director to step back behind the camera, surprising more than one fan.

But that was before seeing the images of this sixth opus. Or an end result that continues and then seems to conclude what has been set up before and brings a bit of freshness to the heart of the movie-sum that the title claims.

In french, “pick up” It could refer to a number of things: the radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion that threatens the film; consequences, including Ethan’s actions; And how each previous installment paved the way to this one, in its own way. It would be the last episode of the saga, which would not have surprised us more than we did at the time, because these things sometimes seem the best.

We see the former’s paranoia when he meets Max’s daughter (an arms dealer voiced by Vanessa Redgrave), played by Vanessa Kirby; The rock climbing scenes are definitely reminiscent of the second’s opening; The hero’s wife, introduced by JJ Abrams, is back as well, as is her plight, which was brought up in Ghost Protocol, taking center stage here; And it’s a direct sequel to Rogue Nation.

In the absence of Brandt (Jeremy Renner was filmed filming the next Avengers), we will definitely find Benjy, Luthor and Ilsa. And Solomon Lane, whose memory even haunts the dreams of Ethan, who lives far from home and has to deal with the weight of the consequences of his actions, more and more.

“You should kill me”His adversary, played by Sean Harris, tells him several times during the story, where the reproaches are legion and the comparisons are not in his favor: he is for example “Scalpel” of MFI where “hammer” The CIA seems more appropriate.

Moreover, he committed impudence and saved his own (“Your Greatest Power”, suppressing his boss to try to save him) when he should have put the mission first. And his methods seem dated to others. It’s enough to ask the question: Is there a place for the old-fashioned, romantic hero in today’s world?

Spy, get up

After the attacks in the French capital in 2015, Christopher McQuarrie wanted Paris to be filmed in one of the Fallout scenes to pay tribute to the city and its police officers at the end of the sequence. This puts his film in the news.

Even more so than the first Mission: Impossible, from which it takes its theatrical interrogation scheme in the first place, and which led to the consequences of the fall of the Soviet bloc on the world of espionage. Thus, he questions his character’s place in a world like ours, where the world order seems increasingly unstable, prompting agents like him to switch sides and join the dark side of the force. A question that also applies to Tom Cruise himself.

Because if Ethan seems to be unchanged from the world in which he has been developing since 1996, what about his translator in an environment, in cinema, where the name of the star is no longer enough to succeed and where superheroes reign. at the checkout? Is it a coincidence that the actor is dating one of them, not least Superman himself?

A native of Krypton whom he brought back to Earth and whom he faces a greater challenge than the one he faced with the Justice League: “Fallout allowed me to do my own stunts. It’s the kind of stuff where there’s a learning curve, but I find I still have a lot of techniques to learn because the physical doesn’t do everything.”explained a very determined Henry Cavill.

To stage Superman’s triumph over Superman, McQuarrie seems to be taking a lot of inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Even the soundtrack by Lorne Balfe, a big fan of Hans Zimmer, who recalls Rises with its heavy vocals and low brass, has the same first track title: “The Storm Is Coming”.

“The end you feared is near. It is you who will have this death upon your conscience. The consequences of all your good intentions.”

Although the finale, through several levels of suspense, touches on this moment when the powers that be are threatened in The Dark Knight and August Walker’s face is half burned as two faces, several parallels stand between Bruce Wayne. and Ethan Hunt. The two men confront an enemy who wants to see the world burn while morally corrupting them and unable to break out of the spiral of their chosen lives, which robs them of all normality.

Like Batman, the IMF star sees his values ​​challenged, his previous choices come back to haunt him in the form of increasingly dangerous adversaries, and happiness even in his dreams. Worse: the case of Ilsa Faust proves to him that the freedom he could fight for is illusory.

Freed from the clutches of Solomon Lane, with whom he worked at the behest of MI6, he is now on the run. Because he’s as much of a threat as the syndicate leader in the eyes of his superiors and tries to kill the terrorist, even if it means going against Ethan. “Don’t Make Me Move”, she begs him about it. And, by extension, that of their relationship.

The two characters, whose bond is truly disturbing, apparently haven’t seen each other since the end of Rogue Nation, and they’ll meet again as they each try to return home. The fact that the main mission is conveyed in the publication “Odyssey” Homer’s account of Ulysses’ long return to Ithaca is not insignificant in this respect.

In Ethan’s case, it is primarily a state of mind, a search for solace that he cannot access without sacrifice: “There can be no peace without great suffering first. The greater the suffering, the greater the peace”, says Solomon Lane’s Apostles’ Manifesto, written by Walker. Shouldn’t he then endanger those he loves? Not according to Luther, who urges Ilsa to distance herself from those who tend to become her own enemies: “If you care about him, you should let him go.”

Which definitely won’t happen. Despite being the darkest and grittiest opus, while denying true darkness from the start, Mission: Impossible – Fallout ends on an upbeat note with a scene in which Ethan, with damaged ribs, asks his partners not to laugh too much. Proof that he has come a long way at the end of this long dizzying journey where each of his members “family” It plays an important role both in action and psychologically.

Again playing more suspense than surprise as he shows very quickly that Walker was Khala, Christopher McQuarrie again plays the classic espionage card and cites Alfred Hitchcock’s Death in Heels as an influence we feel for the idea. The constant movement of the story, which seems to be in real time.

With a fiercer fight than for Cary Grant:

Again staging several dance scenes, before a helicopter chase in Paris, he once again sends a piece of courage that lingers long upstream (a freefall above the capital, which remains no less spectacular) to better focus on the characters. and a complex narrative.

Sometimes it’s too much, because he often needs to remember the stakes of the dialogues. By appropriating elements from previous episodes, it delivers a film more rooted in reality than the others, and which could have been the conclusion of the saga. No doubt a precautionary measure in case Fallout didn’t meet with the expected success.

Fortunately, this is not the case. Far from it, as the feature film offered Tom Cruise his biggest success ($791.7 million worldwide) until Top Gun: Maverick came to replace him in 2022. Also Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) in the last scene, “The World Needs Mission: Impossible”.

The agency likes films that celebrate and bring a little innovation between superheroes and blockbusters full of digital effects. As luck would have it, Tom Cruise called him back, where he proved to us he was still human by breaking his ankle during a stunt.

All at the time suggested that, like his character, he was forced to push his limits on the big screen to fulfill his mission: here, to remain one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, as opposed to taxing box office hits. in the last years.

Hopefully for him, unlike Ethan in most of Fallout, his superhuman feats are fully appreciated. And that other directors will be able to take over the franchise in this way, even if the latter ends with the 8th episode, also signed by Christopher McQuarrie and again scheduled for June 26, 2024.

Previous Episodes:

• Mission Impossible: When Tom Cruise first breathed on us
• Mission Impossible 2: When Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle under his feet
• Mission Impossible 3: When Tom Cruise met the saga’s best villain
• Mission Impossible 4: When Tom Cruise made us dizzy
• Mission Impossible 5: When Tom Cruise took a plane not like everyone else

Next episode… in theaters from July 12