I haven’t seen a JJ Abrams-produced film since 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I haven’t seen a Tom Cruise-vehicle since 2005’s War of the Worlds. I haven’t seen a Mission: Impossible film since 2000’s Mission: Impossible II. And, I haven’t seen a Christopher McQuarrie-scripted film since 1995’s The Usual Suspects.

I’m also a bit of a far left anti-Homeland Security, anti-PATRIOT Act, anti-fascist killjoy.

Maybe I’m not the right audience for this.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is possibly the most bullshit, brain-dead, ridiculous, lens-flare-ridden, over-the-top piece of pro-Homeland Security propaganda I have seen since 2016’s London Has Fallen, during which I rooted for the terrorists.

Previously on Mission: Impossible: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has captured Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) and handed him over to the MI-6.

Hunt’s latest mission is to stop some mysterious unseen anti-religious anarchist from getting his hands on a trio of nuclear cores and blowing up a trio of religious cities (Rome, Jerusalem, and…whatever). In the opening scene, he fucks it up and the bombs fall into the hands of…who knows? Writer-Director Christopher McQuarrie doesn’t know and doesn’t care about logic or plot holes. He’s just here to deliver old fashioned action set pieces, lens flares, American jingoism, and twists upon twists upon telescoped twists. Dick Cheney creamed his pants when he watched this movie.

The action set pieces are fine. They’re almost better than fine. This has the best Streets of Paris vehicular chase sequence since Ronin, the best bathroom fight scene since True Lies, and the most ridiculous foot chase scene since…well…True Lies. Trust me, so long as Fallout is enjoyed on the surface level, audience members will be entertained into drooling catatonic zombies with America Fuck Yeah boners. I cannot deny that the action scenes are paced extraordinarily well and are entertaining as all get out.

The movie between the multiple action sequences is a complete and utter mess. I mean, that’s not why you’re going to see this, but I want to bring this up: this movie is confused as all hell and gets lost in its plot twists within 20 minutes. There’s some anti-religious anarchist who is trying to get his hands on a few orbs of plutonium to detonate at a trio of Holy Cities to destroy the “Old World Order” and bring in some more peaceful “New World Order.” Ethan was going to intercept the plutonium except he fucks up the exchange and then some group or another steals the plutonium and then they’re selling it to the anarchist in exchange for freeing Solomon Lane? But, the anarchist also seems to want to free Lane? I dunno, the point is Ethan Hunt has to stop some bad guy from freeing Solomon Lane, destroying religious cities and creating chaos.

Of course, Fallout is operating under the belief structure that religion is good, America knows best, and only super secret government agencies can stop the forces of evil from disrupting your super Christian, Muslim, and Jewish lives. Organized religion is good. Government is good. Police officers are good. Killing people is bad…unless they’re evil Arabic-looking henchmen working for some mysterious amoral black market dealer named the White Widow. Good lord do I hate this piece of shit movie.

Listen, when Angela Bassett delivers the final speech about how we “need” mysterious secret government agencies, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, in turn causing my whole section to stop absorbing the rotten jingoistic morality leftover from the Bush era and to start thinking about the bullshit being shoveled at them in the form of mindless entertainment. They laughed this bullshit morality off the screen. Anybody with a sense of decency should do the same.