All-American agent

Early in Mission: Impossible—Fallout, there’s a moment that seems intentionally to present a knowing contrast to that other famed international man of intrigue.

In the midst of planning a hijacking mission, an exotic blond femme fatale plants an aggressive kiss on Ethan Hunt’s lips. Bond, James Bond, would have accepted this as par for the course, a perk of the business, so to speak. And the audience would have been primed for the oh-so-sophisticated interlude that would surely occur later in the film.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), on the other hand, looks slightly unnerved. For an instant, his cover identity wavers, and we guess from the surprised widening of his eyes that this brazen hussy isn’t going to get what she wants from our man. (I won’t spoil the plot from there, but let’s just say that the PG-13 rating comes solely from language and action violence rather than from any Bond-style romances.)

I said in my 2015 review of Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation that over the past decade, in the same way 007 has long represented an elite European ideal, America’s most iconic secret agent has come to embody the broad values of our culture. After watching this latest Mission: Impossible installment, I stand by that assessment.

We expect the best spy thrillers to offer eye-popping action sequences set in breathtaking foreign locales, and on this score Fallout unquestionably delivers. The plot may whiplash so quickly through double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses that none have much impact, but what’s that against the sight of Cruise HALO jumping through a lightning storm to land on the Gothic roof of a French opera house?

What makes the film engaging as something more than eye candy, though, is Ethan Hunt himself (and his growth over the course of these movies) and the enemies he battles.

To start with the enemy, if the terror syndicate self-dubbed as “The Apostles” had a theme song, it would be John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The plan of these radical secularists is to nuke three major religious sites—the Vatican, Mecca, and Jerusalem—to achieve that song’s vision of “no religion” and force the rest of the world to join them.

The movie doesn’t explore this element as much as I’d like, but tellingly, it never suggests any part of the villains’ argument might have merit. Better fleshed out is the other antagonist Hunt faces, the CIA’s resident “hammer” Agent Walker (Henry Cavill), who, like the Apostles, is more interested in outcomes than individuals. Walker has no problem taking down innocent bystanders and colleagues if it means achieving his aims.

But that’s not how Hunt and his merry band of rogue outsiders play the game. His inability to sacrifice one life on the altar of expediency is his greatest strength and goes hand in hand with his uniquely American optimism. He always believes he can find a moral way to complete his mission. And he never gives up—seemingly not so much because of an arrogant faith in his own prowess, but because of an innate trust that things will work out in the end if he just keeps moving.

Perhaps that’s why, while he may have racked up a few regrets over the years, we’ve never seen an Ethan Hunt plagued by inner demons or tormented by growing cynicism. In fact, Fallout’s storyline turns on Hunt’s unfailing sense of duty leaving him open for framing.

At 56, Tom Cruise is finally starting to show a few crinkles around the edges. Barely. They suit him. But even more, they suit the trajectory of the Mission: Impossible movies, giving Ethan Hunt a maturing edge that makes his resistance of a world-weary persona all the more appealing.

—A shorter version of this review appears in the Aug. 18 print issue.