Tom Cruise goes nuclear to save the world in 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout'

“Mission: Impossible - Fallout” - ★ ★ ★ ½

“Fallout” makes an ideal title for Christopher McQuarrie's sixth entry in the “Mission: Impossible” series because Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt executes forceful fight scenes and spectacular stunts with such visceral panache that you might just might fall out of your seat.

No kidding.

Here, Cruise blows way past James Bond and now earns comparison to the legendary Jackie Chan for sheer athleticism and astonishing, impossible stunts. (Both stars have broken their bones for their martial art.)

Granted, Chan performs without green screens or body wires. Still, Cruise's commitment to depriving stunt-doubles of employment pays off with an action experience rivaling the best of the series, Brad Bird's “Ghost Protocol.”

Now 56, Cruise defies “Lethal Weapon” star Danny Glover's pithy observation, “I'm getting too old for this (stuff)!”

Near the start of “Fallout,” McQuarrie's cagey screenplay pays nostalgic homage to Bruce Geller's 1960s TV series by condensing the equivalent of an hourlong episode into a single sequence designed by the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) to crack a phone code.

This initiates the plot, a seemingly conventional globe-trotting chase epic equipped with obligatory countdowns to Armageddon.

The IMF must recover three stolen plutonium cores that an arms dealer named Lark and a terrorist group called The Apostles intend to use in bombs they'll detonate in the world's holiest of places - The Vatican, Mecca and Jerusalem - to reshape what they consider to be a corrupt world.

Hunt and fellow IMF members Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), under the supervision of Alec Baldwin's supportive U.S. Secretary (of what? Suicidal Missions Unapproved by Congress or the President?), chase leads while dealing with an old enemy, Lane (Sean Harris, who tried to wipe out the IMF in McQuarrie's “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation”).

CIA director Erica Sloan (Angela Bassett) insists Hunt be accompanied by Agent August Walker (emotionally opaque Superman star Henry Cavill), who thinks Hunt has turned against the agency.

“Fallout” employs a sparing, self-effacing sense of humor, and delves into Hunt's personal life, even sharing his revealing dreams, such as one in which Hunt exchanges embarrassingly honest wedding vows with Julia (Michelle Monaghan), his ex-wife.

Julia becomes the other woman in Hunt's life, along with spunky MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), stuck in the bad position of being ordered to kill Hunt when officials suspect he's gone rogue. Again.

You hear the phrase “I'm working on it” uttered several times in “Fallout.” McQuarrie wisely creates a sense of spontaneity in this tightly wound thriller, supplying his characters with occasional moments of uncertainty prompting the need to Indiana-Jones it (i.e. to make it up as he goes along).

We've seen stunts involving cars, motorcycles, helicopters, tall buildings and mountain cliffs before, but not quite like these - innovatively framed, sharply edited and attractively composed scenes.

Still, McQuarrie stuffs a great 120-minute action film inside a very good 147-minute one that might have benefited from another run through the editing program.

It's tough to be as ruthless as a CIA assassin when it comes to killing some terrific footage for the greater good.

<b>Starring:</b> Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg, Sean Harris, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Angela Bassett

<b>Directed by:</b> Christopher McQuarrie

<b>Other:</b> A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for language, violence. 147 minutes