Once again, I’ve barely watched any entries of the highly successful Mission Impossible franchise though I did write about the fourth one. The rave reviews for this latest entry, with some critics going so far as to call it one of the best action movies ever made, convinced me to turn up at the cinema for it. Like everyone else, I am left amazed by how hard Tom Cruise is still working at the age of 56.

In Belfast. Ethan Hunt and his team are tasked with recovering plutonium cores stolen from Russia that are meant for terrorist John Lark. During the mission, Hunt chooses to save the life of IMF member  Luther Stickell and loses the cores but does manage to learn that a nuclear scientist have designed bombs using the cores. They plan to intercept the next meeting between Lark and a weapons broker known as the White Widow in Paris but the CIA forces them to accept one of their own agents, August Walker, as part of the mission. While there they run into British agent Ilsa Faust who also seems to be involved in some way. As part of her price, the White Widow asks that the team help liberate Solomon Lane from the French authorities and of course it was Hunt himself who apprehended him two years ago and it was his followers who stole the plutonium in the first place.

I wrote the synopsis above to give a bit of a taste of the plot but the actual details don’t really matter and in fact don’t stand up to scrutiny. Solomon Lane and John Lark are, for all intents and purposes, part of the same faction so it doesn’t make sense at all why they would even need to sell the cores to one another, let alone require a third party like the White Widow to broker between them. I suppose a lot can be explained that this is all an incredibly elaborate revenge plot by Lane against Hunt but it’s pretty outlandish. Also silly is how so many of the action scenes are unnecessary. Like why are they are parachuting into Paris when all they need to do is to attend a party or why Hunt needs to run, run, run to keep up with Walker as he slowly walks to a helicopter landing pad only for us to see that Lane is already inside it even though he left at the same time as Walker. So the plot is really just a sort of loose framework to hang the stunts around and I suppose that’s fine.

Still, I have to admit that the stunts themselves are jaw-dropping and worth the price of admission alone. The actual fights are competent but nothing too special even I did like how they show that Hunt tends to win through not due to being physically dominant but to sheer determination. What I found truly thrilling was the physicality of Cruise’s performance here, as he skydives, runs, jumps, drives etc. through the film. The knowledge that he really is doing all this himself makes watching this a powerful experience that feels authentic and of course all of it looks spectacular especially when set against the gorgeous locales used here. That said, the extent of his feats really push the bounds of believability and it’s downright groan-inducing how it always turns out that Hunt’s plans are so intricate and perfect that he always wins out in the end. I also note that as cool as the stunts, some of them feel a bit derivative. For example, the shot of two helicopters stacked on top of one another looks reminiscent of the vertical fight in cars inside a multi-level car park in Ghost Protocol.

Finally I appreciate how the film goes for a bit of emotion by weaving Hunt’s ex-wife into the story. It’s a bit cheesy given how Hunt is portrayed as a flawless hero but it does help elevate the film above the average. All told, this is exactly what I’d imagined it to be: an impeccable action movie with incredible production values and a hardworking lead actor who is willing to put his life on the line to make it look perfect. It’s has no real artistic ambitions but that’s just fine.