It finally clicked for me during this viewing that this is the action film I’ve wanted since The Dark Knight: a film about a near-vigilante in morally grey situations fighting terrorists while simultaneously being pursued by the law.
Thematically, The Dark Knight and MI:6 aren’t too far apart. But their shooting style is also wildly similar. It’s as if somebody told McQuarrie that his MI movies had to borrow from the template Abrams set up in MI:3, but that he also had to throw a bunch of Christopher Nolan in there. Even the structure of the film is similar.
This whole thing works perfectly for me. I have no idea how they top it in MI:7.