Fallout is the closest to a direct sequel that the M:I franchise has ever seen, picking up two years after the events of Rogue Nation. The remains of Solomon Lane's organization "the Syndicate" are now a terrorist group named "the Apostles," who seek threaten the world with nuclear devastation through the detonation of 3 plutonium cores. This puts the Impossible Mission Force (or IMF) on the job for another mission, should they choose to accept it.

Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie returns to deliver what can only be described as an all-out blitzkrieg of high-octane, balls-to-the-wall action thrills. Returning with him is the cast of usual suspects, consisting of Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, and the indestructible and ageless Tom Cruise, as well as some new blood, with Angela Bassett and Henry Cavill being added to the mix.

Essentially, Fallout is an amalgam of key highlights from the franchise's previous efforts cranked to 11 that continuously up the ante in imaginative and unexpected ways. Story beat wise, it feels cut from the same cloth as Christoper Nolan's The Dark Knight or Michael Mann's Heat, though not as dark, which is reflected in a lot of the snappy editing. Narratively, it's the usual twisty-turny (yet fairly predictable) espionage plot, but what elevates Fallout slightly above the rest is how it builds off previous films to create more interesting stakes and show new shades to these fairly two-dimensional characters. In that way, it feel somewhat like a superhero film, and if we're being honest, we may as well call Ethan Hunt — or even Tom Cruise — a superhero at this point, right?