This felt like Age of Ultron without the Avengers. If there was something like the Entity in the real world, it would’ve wiped everyone off in a manner of seconds I feel like. But again that’s a little nitpicky at the end of the day because it’s a spy movie.

To be honest the movie was a little disappointing coming off 4, 5, 6 which were some of the best spy movies I’ve seen in a while (Fallout especially). It’s definitely not a bad movie but I had some gripes. Killing off Ilsa just felt like a bad decision, they built her up the past couple movies but all of sudden dropped her like it was nothing. The reaction after the death made no sense to me where the characters (especially Ethan) seemed to be fairly indifferent. I’m hoping this is a fakeout for the sequel where she will come back. It’s either that or Cruise and McQuarrie felt some type of way that Rebecca Ferguson had Silo and Dune already booked but that’s just speculation. Even Renner and Angela Basset are still alive in universe with their conflicts filming.

I was also not a huge fan of Grace’s character. Half the movie felt like Ethan just having to deal with her fuck ups and weird selfishness. You have someone trying to protect you and you’re ditching him and fucking him over every five minutes (I don’t think this is an exaggeration). Gabriel saying it’s either Ilsa or Grace you have to save felt out of left field; one is his romantic partner and the other is some random person he had maybe half an hour of interaction with. If I was Cruise and saw Grace’s antics constantly screwing over the team and getting Ilsa killed, I would not trust her with anything. Yet they’re clearly setting her up to be his future LI. Her “redemption” where she doesn’t take the money was also poorly done. Logically her declining the money also doesn’t make sense especially regarding suspicion. Why would she do that? She could’ve continued the mission regardless.

Gabriel was also a very disappointing villain. Not sure why we had to build this adversary from Ethan’s past we’ve had no clue about until this movie. I actually loved him in Titans as Deathstroke so he definitely has charisma. His writing was just poor and shallow and I just don’t care about him especially after Cavill and Sean Harris.

Positives though, action was great. Again not as good as the previous movies but still very well done. The core team of Luther, Benji, and Ethan’s chemistry is still as great as ever. Paris was great and loved this role for Pom (huge departure from Mantis). Can’t wait to see her in the next movie. Briggs and his subordinate were hilarious and their chemistry was refreshing. Speaking of which, the humor in this movie was great. This was definitely the most I’ve laughed during a MI movie that’s for sure.

Over all definitely a good movie. Just disappointing and not at the sky high level from the past three installments.