“How many times has Hunt’s government betrayed him, disavowed him, cast him aside?”

The question is irrelevant in the Mission: Impossible franchise, starring Tom Cruise as special agent Ethan Hunt. The trailer, which was released during the Super Bowl championship, is on expected lines – bone-crunching action, impossible stunts, mostly involving Cruise, foreign locations. But the big surprise here is a mustachioed and brutish Henry Cavill, best known for playing Superman.

Cavill plays August Walker, the government agent who has to finish off Hunt and his IMF team members to contain the impact of a failed mission. Here is another movie in which the antagonist is going to steal the show from the hero.

Christopher McQuarrie has directed the sixth edition, which will be released on July 27. The trailer is an editing marvel. The visuals have been cut to the theme song Friction by American rock band Imagine Dragons, which reworks the iconic Lalo Schifrin tune. The cast includes Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson (who gave Cruise competition and company in the previous movie Ghost Protocol) and Michelle Monaghan as Hunt’s long-suffering wife.

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Cavill’s hefty facial fuzz is threatening to take away the attention from the 55-year-old Cruise’s death-defying stunts.