Christopher McQuarrie is a better Mission: Impossible director than screenwriter. Aside from this script’s unclear motivation for the antagonists and overreliance on rubber mask twists, McQuarrie’s bad habits emerge throughout ROGUE NATION and FALLOUT and come to full fruition in DEAD RECKONING PART ONE: the mythologisation of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) as global saviour figure; the self-sacrificing and vaguely cult-like nature of the IMF; the emphasis on ‘friendship’ as an emotional locus.
All that said, the last sequence (notably sparse on dialogue) with the helicopter chase and the mountain fight is spectacular and up there with the best set pieces that this franchise has produced. It’s disappointing that there’s no heist scene in this one but it’s clear by this point that McQuarrie and Cruise have changed the franchise into something else and, aside from a few not-so-hot CGI shots, the practical action scenes are tremendous fun.