IN Mission: Impossible - Fallout, the sixth instalment of the espionage-action franchise, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt receives his latest instructions by way of an old-fashioned tape recorder nestled inside an edition of Homer’s Odyssey.

It’s a quaint nod to the 1960s TV show on which the Mission: Impossible movies are based — movies that have become so expansively scaled, preposterously plotted and implausibly choreographed that they merit renaming. Presumably, Mission: Irrational, Mission: Did He Really Just Do That? and Mission: OK Now You’re Just Messing With Us On Purpose were taken.

Let it be stipulated that Mission: Impossible - Fallout is often ridiculous. It’s too long by at least 20 minutes. The plot is laughably convoluted; the action — propulsive, percussive, brutally pulverising — is exhausting. These are mere cavils, which reminds me of another minus.

Still, even its most irritating parts don’t fatally damage a whole that works amazingly well, despite its own excesses. It’s an efficient, attractive delivery system for the kind of spectacle we’ve come to expect from mid-career Cruise, who famously insists on doing his own stunts and most likely has a motorcycle chase permanently written into every contract. The fact that the one in Fallout occurs on Paris streets that are suspiciously unclogged is characteristic of the world Ethan Hunt occupies: a superhero universe that isn’t exactly mythical, but can still only be described as reality-adjacent.

As Fallout opens, Ethan is marking time in Dublin, waiting for his next assignment from the Impossible Mission Force and fighting the guilt that’s been troubling him since his separation from his wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan). But the brooding thoughts are banished soon enough, when Ethan is tasked with tracking down some errant plutonium, and bringing to heel his arch-nemesis Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the leader of a freelance terrorist network.

It would all be easy-peasy if it weren’t for Ethan’s pesky moral conscience, which leads him to lose said plutonium, an error that leads Angela Bassett’s gimlet-eyed CIA chief to assign Ethan a minder, a ramrod-straight operative named Walker.

Portrayed by Henry Cavill in a handsomely wooden performance, the moustachioed, perfectly tousled Walker makes an amusing foil both for Ethan’s competitive instincts and his altruism, which in the first hour of Fallout are played for laughs, but also thrills in the form of a daring midair parachute rescue. But that bit of business soon pales as bloody gun battles, car chases, a rooftop foot race, a helicopter chicken-fight and a literal cliff-hanger ensue, all accompanied by bass-heavy “womps” that sound like outtakes from Inception at its most deafening.

The stunts, staged with vigour and a sharp eye for spatial balance by writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, grow wilder as Fallout goes on. And, admittedly, they’re a hoot. But, as with all the M: I movies, the heart of the film lies with Cruise, who at 56 refuses to obey the laws of aging, logic or simple gravity. With just a bit of facial puffiness proving he’s not hiding a portrait in an attic somewhere, he exhibits the same all-out commitment in Fallout that he does in every film he’s in, whether it’s a slick blockbuster or idiosyncratic semi-indie (check out American Made sometime).

As a superspy with an irritating messiah complex, Cruise brings a work ethic as solid as the movie’s narrative ethic is hectic, generously and subtly conducting an outstanding supporting cast that includes M: I veterans Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Alec Baldwin. Some of Fallout’s most delicious scenes, though, feature Cruise and Vanessa Kirby, leaving behind her Princess Margaret persona from The Crown to play a fascinatingly saucy minx of indistinct motivation.

What makes Mission: Impossible beloved — and what has allowed it to supplant the James Bond brand as a destination for action-with-a-little-fun — is its playfulness; there are at least two amusing set pieces of misdirection that give Fallout extra fizz, even if they’re as clunkily obvious as who the real villain is. Set against some magnificent locales in Paris, London and Kashmir, this is a great-looking example of Hollywood cheese at its most voluptuous and toothsome.

Yes, Mission: Impossible - Fallout is big, brash and completely nonsensical. But, as someone once sang, that’s entertainment.

—By arrangement with The Washington Post

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2018