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PARAMOUNT

MOVIE INFO

Director:
Christopher McQuarrie
Cast:
Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames
Writing Credits:
Christopher McQuarrie

Synopsis:
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team race against time after a mission gone wrong.

Box Office:
Budget
$178 million.
Opening Weekend
$61,236,534 on 4386 Screens.
Domestic Gross
$220,159,104.

MPAA:
Rated PG-13

DISC DETAILS
Presentation:
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio:
English Dolby Atmos
English Audio Description
Spanish Dolby 5.1
French Dolby 5.1
Portuguese Dolby 5.1
Subtitles:
English
Spanish
French
Portuguese
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
English
Spanish
French
Cantonese
Czech
Danish
German
Greek
Latin Spanish
French Canadian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Hungarian
Mandarin
Dutch
Norwegian
Brazilian Portuguese
Portuguese
Russian
Romanian
Slovenian
Finnish
Swedish
Thai

Runtime: 147 min.
Price: $39.99
Release Date: 12/4/2018

Bonus:
• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie and Actor Tom Cruise
• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie and Editor Eddie Hamilton
• Audio Commentary with Composer Lorne Balfe
• Isolated Score Track
• “Behind the Fallout” Documentary
• Deleted Scenes Montage
• “Foot Chase Musical Breakdown”
• “The Ultimate Mission” Featurette
• Storyboards
• Trailer
• Booklet


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RELATED REVIEWS


Mission: Impossible - Fallout [Blu-Ray] (2018)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 25, 2018)

Someday Tom Cruise will get too old to play action hero, but at the ripe old age of 55, Cruise made 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout. The sixth entry in a series that began all the way back in 1996, I doubt he’ll quit anytime soon.

Why would he? The Impossible franchise remains as popular as ever, with a strong worldwide gross of nearly $800 million for Fallout. No seventh Impossible film has been announced yet, but I won’t be shocked if one hits screens by 2022 – when Cruise turns 60!

The last time we saw Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and the other members of the “Impossible Mission Force” (IMF), they captured Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the leader of a malevolent organization called “The Syndicate”. With Lane in prison, the Syndicate regroups as “The Apostles” and attempts to acquire plutonium cores that they can use for nuclear mayhem.

Ethan and his colleagues attempt to stop this action but fail and get blamed for the loss of the plutonium. Eager to right wrongs, Ethan and his colleagues pursue the Apostles, all while CIA Agent August Walker (Henry Cavill) tries to corral the rogue IMF crew.

Unlike most franchises, I think the Impossible films have gotten better over the years. The first two seemed erratic, but I thought 2006’s Mission: Impossible III finally lived up to the series’ potential.

Though I’ve come to like it more since I first saw it, 2011’s Ghost Protocol seemed good but not great, while 2016’s Rogue Nation arguably became the best of the bunch. With Nation’s writer/director back in the saddle for Fallout, I expected another excellent adventure.

Alas, Fallout doesn’t quite become the top-notch action flick I hoped to find. While it works pretty well overall, it comes with too many problems to hit the highs of Nation.

One of the movie’s main problems stems from its convoluted plot. At its heart, Fallout brings a very simple tale in which the IMF chases down the plutonium cores – anything else feels superfluous.

Unfortunately, McQuarrie ladles on lots of “anything else”, and this makes the story a meandering mess at times. McQuarrie sends the narrative down various unnecessary rabbit holes that just end up creating confusion.

Fallout also suffers from running time bloat, as it runs a whopping 147 minutes. The first Impossible clocked in at an efficient 110 minutes, while the second and third floated right around the two-hour mark.

Protocol and Nation both stretched a little past the 130-minute point, and I guess one can argue that the extra 15 minutes accorded to Fallout shouldn’t become a problem. That would be true if we added 15 minutes to shorter movies, but 130 minutes already seems long for this sort of action affair, so the choice to push Fallout close to two and a half hours seems like too much to me.

On this disc’s extras, McQuarrie claims that he tested a shorter cut and audiences liked it less than the 147-minute version. I’ll believe him but I still think there could be a 130-minute edition of Fallout that works better than the released film.

Which comes back to the “story bloat” I mentioned. Without all the superfluous beats, we could get a leaner/meaner Fallout that lacks the meandering elements.

Even in this overly elongated version, Fallout manages pretty good entertainment. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not as though I dislike the movie, and I suspect some of my complaints come from the high expectations with which I enter the Impossible films.

These movies have become so consistently strong that anything below greatness may feel “bad”. At its worst, Fallout is still a solidly “pretty good” film.

As usual, the action scenes buoy Fallout and almost make me forget the plot problems. We get a slew of big set pieces, and these bring out a lot of excitement.

That’s one area where the franchise grew over time. In the 1996 film, the movie tended toward a lackluster sense of action beats, but these got better across various efforts, and Fallout stands with the best.

From a harrowing jump out of a plane to various chases to a climactic race against the clock, Fallout pours on the action, and these scenes sizzle. Whatever other flaws we find here, I can’t complain about the level of thrills on display.

It’s too bad that the scenes between action beats tend to plod and feel redundant. As I noted, even with the flaws, Fallout still offers good entertainment – I just think it could’ve been better.


The Disc Grades: Picture B+/ Audio A/ Bonus A-

Mission: Impossible - Fallout appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc – mostly. On two occasions, the image opened up to the digital IMAX 1.90:1.

Don’t expect Dunkirk-level IMAX, though, as the movie didn’t use a lot of the expanded ratio. The first sequence started at 23:35 and lasts about three and a half minutes, while the second occurred at 1:54:05 and completed at 2:15:15.

Note that while the first segment offered 100 percent 1.90:1 footage, the second/longer one varied between 1.90:1 and 2.35:1. As such, don’t expect the whole 21 minutes to be at the expanded ratio.

As expected, this became a strong presentation, and sharpness looked largely positive. A few interiors could seem a little soft, but not to a severe degree, so this usually remained an accurate, well-defined image.

I saw no signs of jagged edges or moiré effects, and edge haloes also remained absent. Like most modern films, the movie suffered from no print flaws.

Also like most modern films, Fallout featured a fair amount of teal, though it usually replaced the usual orange with a mostly yellow/amber impression. Within those design parameters, the colors appeared well-rendered.

Blacks seemed deep and dense, while shadows came across as smooth and concise. This was a pretty solid presentation.

Expect a dazzling Dolby Atmos soundtrack from Fallout. Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the mix offered a consistently active soundscape that always impressed.

With a slew of big scenes, various action elements filled the room. This meant bullets, explosions, vehicles and other forms of mayhem showed up all around the spectrum on a frequent basis.

The effects boasted excellent localization and blending, so this formed into a snug, seamless soundscape. Music used the speakers in a bold way as well.

Audio quality came across nicely, with speech that seemed natural and concise. Music appeared bold and brassy.

Effects became the most dominant aspect of the mix, and they lived up to expectations. These elements came across as dynamic and impactful, with deep, firm low-end response. Everything about this mix connected to create an impressive impression.

Expect a slew of extras on this two-Blu-ray set, and Disc One boasts three separate audio commentaries. The first involves writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and actor Tom Cruise. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story/characters, connections to the prior movies, stunts and action, editing and camerawork, cast and performances, music, effects and connected domains.

If you’ve heard prior McQuarrie/Cruise commentaries you’ll know what to expect here. Like in the past, McQuarrie does the heavy lifting while Cruise acts as cheerleader.

Cruise does throw out some useful notes, but he mainly praises the film and all involved. McQuarrie falls into that “happy talk” trap at times as well, but he manages enough good information to carry the commentary. Though the prevalence of praise becomes tiresome, McQuarrie manages to make this a generally good track.

For the second commentary, we hear from McQuarrie and editor Eddie Hamilton. Both sit together for their running, screen-specific discussion of editing, music and sound design, story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, and similar material.

Without Cruise along for the ride, I expected less happy talk here – and I got less happy talk, though the tone still tended toward a lot of praise. This means a great deal of plaudits for the film and its participants.

As with the first commentary, though, the McQuarrie/Hamilton chat still manages enough productive information to carry us past the fluff. We find a lot of interesting technical details in this largely engaging piece.

Finally, we get a commentary from composer Lorne Balfe. During his running, screen-specific chat, he goes over how he came to the project as well as aspects of his score.

Balfe talks about bongos so much that it becomes borderline comical, but he does so with a sense of self-awareness and a wink. That jovial attitude pervades this track, so while it may lack the breadth of topics found in the first two discussions, Balfe makes this a fine examination of his musical choices.

In addition to the commentaries, Disc One comes with a isolated score. This presents Balfe’s music in Dolby 5.1. It’s too bad the track went with a lossy option, but it still becomes a nice addition to the package.

Over on Disc Two, we begin with a seven-part documentary called Behind the Fallout. It runs 53 minutes, 32 seconds and features McQuarrie, Cruise, 2nd unit director/stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood, skydiving camera operator Craig O’Brien, VFX supervisor Jody Johnson, chief instructor Ray Armstrong, skydiving coordinator Allan Hewitt, jumpmaster Alex Fixen, chief rigger Karen Saunders, producer Jake Myers, safety diver Sian Stokes, HALO doctor Anna Hicks, skydive doubles Alan Foulkes-Williams and Rusty Lewis, production designer Peter Wenham, supervising location manager Ben Piltz, chief lighting technician Martin Smith, co-producer/1st AD Tommy Gormley, aerial coordinator Marc Wolff, Maori chief David Higgens, aerial assistant Randy Hepner, Airbus instructor Tim McAdamds, mountain flying instructor Simon Bower, aerial grips Jean Chineau and Greg Rousseau, and actors Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Simon Pegg, Henry Cavill, Vanessa Kirby, and Rebecca Ferguson.

“Behind” examines story/characters, cast and performances, stunts and action, photography, and sets/locations. “Behind” emphasizes the stunts and uses the usual hyperbolic tone typical of programs for Cruise films.

This means many comments about how daring and amazing Cruise was as well as lots of hype about the danger and threat involved. We still learn some good information and see useful shots from the production, but all the fluff gets old.

With a Deleted Scenes Montage, we find a three-minute, 41-second compilation of shots. These come with music but no dialogue and only minor effects.

Why present these as a “montage” rather than individual scenes? Presumably because many run for only a few seconds, but this still feels like an odd collection. It gives us the footage in such a disjointed manner that it feels more like a music video than a glimpse of excised footage.

We can watch the “Montage” with or without commentary from McQuarrie and Hamilton. McQuarrie explains that he doesn’t like to include deleted scenes but these clips required so much work that he wanted to present them.

That’s nice for those involved, but it doesn’t make the “Montage” memorable for viewers. At least the commentary gives us some insights.

A Footchase Musical Breakdown fills four minutes, 50 seconds and includes commentary from Balfe. We hear isolated aspects of the score during one film sequence. Balfe offers some thoughts and allows this to become an interesting dissection of the music.

The Ultimate Mission lasts two minutes, 51 seconds and provides notes from Cruise. He tells us how amazing the production was. Yawn.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we find some Storyboards. These come as stillframe galleries and cover four scenes: “Paris”, “What If?”, “London” and “Helicopter”. I’d probably prefer a boards-to-film comparison, but this still becomes a good batch of drawings.

Finally, the set provides a booklet. It includes some photos and quotes related to the movie’s stunts. It seems superfluous.

A mix of highs and lows, Mission: Impossible – Fallout usually works well. It may seem inconsistent, but the positives outweigh the negatives. The Blu-ray brings very good visuals along with excellent audio and a wide array of supplements. Though not the best of the franchise, Fallout still entertains

Viewer Film Ratings: 4.1333 Stars Number of Votes: 15
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