Don’t expect to be transfixed by action from the opening sequence of the sixth instalment of the Mission Impossible films.

Mission Impossible: Fallout begins with a picturesque lakeside wedding.

By now it feels as though we know roguish secret agent Ethan Hunt (played by a 56-year-old Tom Cruise).

A waterside wedding does not seem to be his jam.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie seems to agree and sadly for Hunt, the illusion of a happy ending with wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) is quickly shattered.

We are plunged into a more familiar action film reality: A dark and sparsely furnished room, a secretive exchange at the doorway and a politely-recorded, self-destructing message (hidden in Homer’s The Odyssey, no less): “Your mission, should you choose to accept it.”

A few years after Hunt captured evil antagonist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), The Syndicate’s survivors have splintered and re-formed as the Apostles.

The group is led by a mysterious fundamentalist called John Lark.

The Apostles plan to steal three plutonium balls and kick-off a chain of catastrophic nuclear explosions in order to reboot mankind for the better.

Hunt, flanked by fixers Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), is catapulted to Berlin to buy the plutonium cores from an arms dealer in a moody underground roadway.

The deal turns sour when The Apostles force Hunt to choose between Luther’s life and the plutonium balls.

The setback causes the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) to hastily regroup under the command of besuited bureaucratic ballbuster Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin).

The lost plutonium means the CIA’s Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) has all the ammunition she needs to foist the beefy August Walker (Henry Cavill) on the IMF team.

Walker is a hulking, muscular force with permission to shoot first and ask questions later.

The tension between the younger and more impulsive Walker and his older rival is one of the best power plays in the film.

The pair HALO jump out of a plane into a Paris nightclub to spoil a planned meeting between John Lark and arms dealer, The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby last seen as Princess Margaret in Netflix’s The Crown).

An earlier skirmish in the men’s bathroom is one of the best fight scenes I have seen in ages.

It leaves John Lark - and the porcelain - more than a little worse for wear.

The violence heralds the arrival of MI6 agent Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who is, naturally, an old flame of Hunt’s.

Faust is hungry to be welcomed back into the MI6 fold and, armed and loaded, is hot-on-the-heels of The Apostles, as well.

Success on her mission means she can return home to the United Kingdom.

Through a strange twist of fate, obtaining the plutonium balls means Hunt must help orchestrate the prison break of Solomon Lane from a high-security convoy on a Parisian roadway.

While this causes him some momentary consternation, it is fleeting.

The breakout cues speeding motorcycle and car chases - including through the notorious Arc de Triomphe roundabout - at helter-skelter pace.

There are plenty of gun battles where Hunt’s desire to uphold the morals of society very nearly get him, and his team, killed.

The film is eager to flesh out Hunt’s moral code: Who is he loyal too? What is he driven by? Where does he draw the line between right and wrong?

Hunt runs across rooftops (Cruise - who does all his own stunts - famously broke his ankle during filming the sky rise sequences), jumps out of windows and even flies his own helicopter across the rooftop of the world, near a mountainous Kashmiri aid camp, in the final scenes.

McQuarrie (who returns for the sequel after directing Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation in 2015) leaves audiences with a literal cliff-hanger as Hunt dangles precariously from a rock face in order to stop the detonation of twin nuclear bombs.

By the end our hero is battered and bruised but his morals stay true.

Although a peaceful married life with Julia will remain out-of-reach, Hunt seems to come to the realisation that his IMF buddies are friends for life.

At almost two-and-a-half hours in length, it’s a long and rocky ride.

Whether Cruise can breathe new life into the role a seventh time around remains an unknown.

After 22-years as Ethan Hunt (the first film was in 1996), he’s had a great innings.

The film isn’t afraid of poking fun of itself either, tackling the issue of an ageing protagonist and its reliance on dubious rubber masks, head-on.

Mission Impossible: Fallout brings Hunt’s high-stakes, off-protocol journey to a satisfying and improbable conclusion.