Movie review: ‘Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation’

The “Mission: Impossible” franchise has a lot in common with Old Faithful: it’s a popular summertime attraction; it’s predictable as clockwork; and features acts of nature — a geyser of boiling water in one case, Tom Cruise’s abs in the other — that remain impressive after all these years.

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the fifth installment in this reboot of the popular ’60s TV spy series, does nothing to undermine this assertion. While director Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) has little new to add to the filmmaking formula, he proves himself to be a talented recycler.

Once again, the secretive American agency known as the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) finds itself in the crosshairs, this time from Congress. The head of the CIA (Alec Baldwin) wants the IMF brought to heel under his control, meaning all the agents will be pulled from their assignments and the organization dismantled.

But top agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his boss, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), have no intention of knuckling under as they think they are close to cracking the ruthless Syndicate, a global terrorist organization bent on chaos and catastrophe. That the Syndicate happens to be run by a cold, sinister European (Sean Harris, The Borgias) makes it all the more nefarious.

The result is that Hunt is a wanted man by both the Syndicate and CIA with only his trusty sidekicks — including comic-relief Benji (Simon Pegg), no-nonsense Luther (Ving Rhames) and the leggy, is-she-or-isn’t-she-a-double-agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) — as well as his lack of fear of heights, speeding cars and whizzing bullets to guide him.

MI fans go to these movies for the stunts in exotic locales and Rogue Nation has at least three winners. The much-talked-about scene with Cruise hanging from the outside of an ascending airplane takes place before the opening credits though it is outdone by two later set-pieces: a masterful dance of action choreography and camera work set backstage and in the rafters of the Vienna Opera House while Turandot is being performed; and a dizzying motorcycle chase through the winding streets of Morocco.

While it all may be, literally, downhill from there, McQuarrie — who also wrote the screenplay — keeps things moving swiftly though, at 131 minutes, Rogue Nation does wear out its welcome by the end.

Still, what Rogue Nation does well is reinforce what a commanding action figure Cruise, 53, has been for the last couple of decades. He received very little notice for one of last summer’s best action films, the woefully underrated Edge of Tomorrow, and Rogue Nation may be dismissed as just another sequel as cash grab. But Cruise can still bring the goods when it comes to this kind of summer spectacle.

Just like Old Faithful.

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 3:08 PM with the headline "Movie review: ‘Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation’."