Mission: Impossible - Fallout

I'm a sucker for Mission: Impossible, never mind I was too young to understand the TV show when it was on. 

• Have to like that the IMF always seem to know where to find him to deliver the self-destructing messages....ok, it might have to do with agents having been geotagged, but still. The biometric verification though, ouch. 
• You have to give them props for working with whoever they can get for these movies: No Jeremy Renner in this movie cos he (presumably busy) with MCU.
• As both the franchise (and Tom Cruise) age, I'm glad to see that while the stunts are getting bigger, but also not too far out there....?
• Benji is still the funniest, but also the most useless on that team. 
• Have to like that it was implied that the White Widow's mother was Max (Vanessa Redgrave) from the first film... maybe Max had kids later in life?
• Wah, did they give Sean Harris time to grow out the facial hair ah? 
• That said, Solomon Lane is some lousy anarchist - his grand plan to get back at Ethan is by killing everyone he cared about in a nuclear bomb explosion. 🙄
• I'm guessing Alec Baldwin's M:I contract ends with this movie....? 
• If you want to see what Cavill looks like with half his face melted off.... not pretty, but he had it coming. 
• I haven't been following this franchise from the beginning, but the free climbing (with no safety gear) in the last third is a great callback to the opening scene in M:I II. 

Despite my own ambivalance about Tom Cruise, these movies are always fun to watch, and like most aging franchises, a lot of callbacks to previous movies. You can watch it on its own because someone will explain everything at some point, but you might enjoy it more if you know the references from previous movies.