I love everything about this movie.

Rating: 9/10 (12 February 2020)

(Well, not the Humpty Dumpty line). I love that this film uses the moniker III and not 3. I love the red font. I love Giachinno's punched up score. I love that the opening credits are short. Speaking of the opening, I think it's one of the most powerful powerhouse openings I've ever seen. The writing is strong and economical. It's much more than Alias for $150 million.
This soft reboot and stand-alone is chock full of series firsts (Pegg, Julia etc.) and some of the best evolutions and expansions of the Mission tropes (Ensemble crew, and Davian's mask run is a highlight).
In a career full of tremendous performances, Philip Seymour manages to make an action movie arms dealer villain one of his best. Cruise's Hunt in this film is a real human, raw, emotional, he flinches, he's wild, and yet he's a total and dedicated badass here also.
Abrams packs a lot in to this film. Almost too much and there's a dab of fatigue and rush towards the end. But everything that is done here is done spectacularly. It may not be the most perfectly formed but it is my favourite by a country mile.
Impossible Mission: I'm tempted to put any number of the sequences in this film, but the building fulcrum probably pips it for the mission that most homages the first film. The set up is kinda rough and ready and so is the execution; the big gag being the fulcrum and the the actual infiltration being a kind of bait and switch by not showing you. It's a clever little old school sequence that paved the way for Ghost Protocol.