A Look Back at “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation” and “Fallout”

For this edition, I will be wrapping up my “Mission: Impossible” series revisit. This review will consist of my takes of “Rogue Nation” and “Fallout,” while “Dead Reckoning” and “The Final Reckoning” will have their own separate reviews. And, make sure to check out my personal ranking of the series at the end of my “Final Reckoning” review!

In the 2015 entry “Rogue Nation,” with the IMF now disbanded and Ethan Hunt out in the cold, a new threat - called The Syndicate - soon emerges. The Syndicate is a network of highly skilled operatives who are dedicated to establishing a new world order via an escalating series of terrorist attacks.

Faced with what may be the most impossible mission yet, Ethan gathers his team and joins forces with Ilsa Faust, a disavowed British agent who may or may not be a member of this deadly rogue nation.

This film series is probably one of those rare film franchises that gets better with each installment. Now, while “Mission: Impossible III” is a fairly decent entry, the series really kicked into high gear starting with “Ghost Protocol” onward.

“Rogue Nation” can really get your adrenaline pumping with its thrilling action and sharp storyline. Just like any other “Mission”, this fifth entry features many more daring action sequences, including an incredible stunt featuring Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) attempt to grab onto a moving plane during take off. I remember seeing some of the behind the scenes footage of this stunt on YouTube and even watching that can be exhilarating.

The fifth movie also explores themes of trust, betrayal and the grey areas of espionage. The film’s villain, Solomon Lane, is also a major highlight of this “Mission.” Lane is one of the most complex villain of this series and a lot of his moments can be quite intense. In fact, if it wasn’t for the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of the villain in “Mission: Impossible III,” then Solomon Lane could’ve been the best villain of the franchise!

While “Rogue Nation” can have a couple small weak points here and there, it’s still a very solid entry in the franchise that can be extremely thrilling. 

In the 2018 entry “Fallout,” Ethan Hunt and the IMF team join forces with CIA assassin

August Walker to prevent a disaster of epic proportions. Arms dealer John Lark and a group of terrorists known as the Apostles plan to use three plutonium cores for a simultaneous nuclear attack on the Vatican, Jerusalem and Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

When the weapons go missing, Ethan and his crew find themselves in a desperate race against time to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

The sixth entry of this lucrative franchise is, in my opinion, the best of the entire series (and that includes the last two installments). The action in this entry is the most intense action you will see in this series - and honestly in any action movie in particular. There are so many action sequences scattered throughout this movie that really stand out, especially the helicopter chase towards the end of the movie.

The entire helicopter sequence is probably one of the most thrilling and impressive scenes in the entire series. This entire sequence is highly intense since it was done practically with no CGI involved. The helicopter scene is also amazingly shot and with how close the helicopters are, it also seemed like they would crash into each other at any moment.

“Mission: Impossible - Fallout” also delivers quite a few twists and turns that really help build the tension and ups the ante quite a bit. And, before I forget, another stand out moment I thoroughly enjoyed in this movie is the sky-diving/HALO jump sequence as Ethan Hunt and Walker end up sky-diving through a storm.

Don’t forget you can stream the entire “Mission: Impossible” series (excluding “The Final Reckoning” on Paramount Plus. I also realized while scrolling through the streaming service that Paramount Plus also has the “Mission: Impossible” TV series for those who are interested!

ROGUE NATION TIDBITS

• Tom Cruise performed the sequence where Ethan Hunt climbs on the outside of a flying airplane (an Airbus A400M) without the use of visual effects or a stunt double. At times, he was suspended on the aircraft five thousand feet in the air.

• Tom Cruise stated in an interview that it was his intention to do the stunt hanging onto the Airbus A400M in a way to outdo himself after the Burj Khalifa climb stunt in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). However, his idea raised objections by the crew due to safety. Being a certified pilot himself, he wanted to get the feel of being out on the wing or on the side of the airplane. A major obstacle to filming would be bird strikes and wind resistance on the runway. To capture the action, a wind-resistant custom frame for the camera was built and mounted onto the left wing of the plane. The other major problem would be keeping Cruise's eyes open in the presence of fast wind and runway particles, so his eye specialist designed a special lens that can cover the entire eyeball. Eight takes of the stunt were filmed. Christopher McQuarrie was very concerned that the actor might panic suddenly, but was assured by Cruise to not stop filming until the stunt had been finished.

• Tom Cruise was struck in the body by a small pebble while filming one of the takes hanging from the plane. Cruise claimed that the impact hurt so badly, he was certain he had been badly injured, and was afraid to look, once the take was over. Fortunately, the pebble merely embedded in his clothing, and he was amazed by how small it was.

• After extensive training for the underwater scene, Tom Cruise was able to hold his breath underwater for a record-breaking six minutes. The record was broken 7 years later during Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), when Kate Winslet was able to stay underwater for 7 minutes and 14 seconds.

• The original release date was set for December 25, 2015. However, Paramount Pictures pulled forward the release date to July 31 to avoid competition with Spectre (2015) and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015).

• The Syndicate, the covert criminal organization which features in the film, were the regular antagonists in the original Mission: Impossible (1966) television series. They were also mentioned briefly in the final scene of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). As the film series follows on from the tv version, theoretically this is likely to be the same group, or a successor group using the same name.

FALLOUT TIDBITS

• The HALO skydiving sequence (distance of 7 km / 25000 feet, traveling speed of 265 - 320 km/h) was the last sequence filmed during production, but it was the first stunt designed and required a full year of planning out. The crew had only a limited time window of three minutes a day during sunset to film a jump. Because of strict air aviation regulations in France, it could only be shot in the Emirates. It took Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, the skydiving camera operator Craig O'Brien (who was instructed to keep a distance of three feet from Cruise while filming) and others involved a total of 106 jumps to get three possible takes. However, to rehearse the sequence, the crew built a custom oxygen helmet with RAF assistance that can be lit up to see a face, and then also built one of the world's largest wind tunnels for practice. The practice doesn't end there - Cruise and the other persons involved did five skydives a day with one in the morning, three in the afternoon, and one at dusk. Some of the other cast members turned up to visit, with Simon Pegg saying that he and his co-stars thought multiple times that Cruise was seriously about to die: "It is a daily stress going to work with him, because you don't know if you are going to see him tomorrow."

• Tom Cruise trained for an entire year to perform the HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) stunt in this film.

• In August 2017, Tom Cruise suffered an injury while filming a stunt jumping from one building to another. He was able to grab onto the other building thanks to a harness strapped onto him and to his history of performing his own stunts for action films. However, his ankle fractured upon the impact of the jump. Cruise then got up and attempted to run it off, as this was in the middle of a chase scene, before he and the crew decided to stop filming. Shooting was delayed for eight weeks following the injury. The footage of the stunt used in the film and its trailers just so happens to be the actual injury. To this day, Cruise still refers to this stunt as the easiest of all he's had to do for this film.

• The White Widow is introduced as she delivers a tribute speech to her late mother, "Max", who she describes as a lover of paradoxes. While never clarified onscreen, the filmmakers have confirmed that this Max was indeed Vanessa Redgrave's character from the first Mission: Impossible (1996) film, in which she actually called Ethan Hunt a "paradox". Redgrave was once asked back for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), but declined to return, making this the first reference to her character since the first movie.

• Henry Cavill was offered the role publicly through his Instagram by the director.

• Solomon Lane is the first villain in the series to appear in two films.