Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) asks Tom Cruise to do some nearly impossible stunts for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.....and boy does he do them.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, Edge of Tomorrow) has been tracking down a rogue organization simply called The Syndicate. Nobody else believes this syndicate exists, so he is on his own. Meanwhile, CIA director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin, Beetlejuice) is in a committee hearing with IMF agent Brandt (Jeremy Renner, Avengers: Age of Ultron). Hunley thinks that the IMF is reckless and is trying to get them disbanded and absorbed into the CIA. Hunt finally locates The Syndicate with the help of a rogue agent/Syndicate member, Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson, Hercules). He pulls in his friend Benji (Simon Pegg, Hot Fuzz) to help take them down. Since the IMF has been disbanded, now Hunt is wanted by the CIA. Brandt calls in Luther (Ving Rhames, Pulp Fiction) to help find and protect Hunt before the CIA gets to him. From there it is a race to the finish.
This film does a lot of things right and the action is one of those things. Before the opening credits even roll we jump right in with the now infamous plane clinging stunt from Cruise. Skipping all the green screen nonsense, Cruise decided to actually hang on to the outside of a plane while it took off. It seems like the older he gets, the crazier he gets with his stunts. It's like he has something to prove. Well, I say keep on proving it crazy Cruise, because I'm loving the intensity of these stunts. You would think that they might have peaked right there at the beginning. How do you keep the momentum going after something like that? Somehow they do. The film moves at a pretty brisk pace. There are other fun action sequences as well, such as a car chase that eventually leads to an insane motorcycle chase down an interstate and a winding mountain road. Don't get too worried about it, this is a good motorcycle chase....not that cheesy, goofy motorcycle ballet directed by John Woo in the second M:I movie. McQuarrie seemed to have watched the rest of the series and took notes on all of the best action scenes and left the rest on the cutting room floor.
Another thing McQuarrie brought back, that I feel has been kind of lacking since the first film, is the actual tension and espionage of a good spy thriller. When Hunt was hanging over that pressure sensitive floor in the climate controlled room in the first film, you could feel the tension watching that scene. There's been a few scenes in some of the films since then that were good (the Dubai tower scene comes to mind), but McQuarrie really brought that back to balance with the all-out action of the chase and fight scenes. There is one scene in particular with Hunt underwater for several minutes. I was sitting in my seat holding my breath right along with him. This is also a spy film, so McQuarrie, as a screenwriter, brought back some of the espionage bits. There were double crosses, triple crosses, triple double crosses. All that being said, it was written well enough that you could still follow it. (As much as I love the first film, I had to watch it two times to understand what happened.)
Rogue Nation also brings back your favorite players from the previous films. And everyone does an excellent job as usual. Cruise just continues to impress me with his action roles. Pegg brings his brand of humor into the mix quite nicely without overdoing it. He brings just the right amount of levity to a scene, such as the car chase. Car chases have been done to death, but with Simon Pegg in the passenger seat there is a sense of humor about it without taking away the intensity of it. He is by far my favorite addition to the franchise. Another one of my favorite characters was always Luther, played by Rhames. He and Pegg were both "computer guys" in the films though, so he was kind of pushed out of the fourth film in favor of Pegg. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to see that the script brought both of them back in as major players in a way that actually made sense. I hope the next director/screenwriter and figure out a way to do this again. That brings us to the female lead. This has been the most inconsistent feature of these films, which is kind of sad. They've been rotated through like Bond girls. This is a spy team. If they are going to keep making these films (which of course they are), then I'd like them to put in a permanent female on the team. Each of the female leads have been pretty decent in the past films. Ferguson is no different. In fact, she kicked all kinds of ass and I'd like to see her in more films.
Each film in this series has been directed by a different person and it has been fun watching what each director does with the material (even the John Woo fiasco has it's fun moments). Christopher McQuarrie just may have made my favorite installment with Rogue Nation. He took all the best components of his predecessors films (left the bad stuff behind), put them in a blender, and came up with something that just worked on every level for me. If you have been a fan of the series so far, especially Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, then there is no way you won't enjoy Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.
Rating: *********- (9 out of 10) [Full Price!]
Memorable Quote:
Benji: That doesn't sound impossible.
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