Film & TV

Film Review: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

The CIA disavows the IMF and brands Ethan an international terrorist as they attempt to hunt down the shadowy terrorist group known only as ‘The Syndicate’.

MIRogueNation

When it comes to Hollywood blockbusters a successful trilogy is tough; four films is almost unheard of; but a franchise built on five films that progressively improve in quality… That’s Mission: Impossible.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team at IMF (Impossible Missions Force) are back to try and save the world once more.

Picking up where Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ended, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation finds the IMF hunting down the shadowy terrorist group known only as ‘The Syndicate’. They are a group as highly trained as the IMF but committed to destroying both democracy and the IMF itself.

Ethan is deep undercover tracking the head of the syndicate and making serious headway towards halting the faction, however, when the head of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Alan Huntley (Alec Baldwin) disavows the IMF and brands Ethan an international terrorist, all hope seems lost.

Tom Cruise delivers a smooth-as-silk performance as Ethan Hunt, almost surpassing Daniel Craig’s James Bond. The script and direction are slick and well developed and, as such, play out as a much more traditional espionage film when compared to the popcorn explosion flicks one often sees from the genre.

Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames all reprise their roles from the multi-film franchise and provide some excellent laughs. Pegg stands out in this film as the true second lead; his character Benji finally gets his true time in the field (a recurring gag from the previous film) but ends up biting off far more than he can chew.

Rebecca Ferguson breaks the mould of what the archetype for female spies should be and more than holds her own, both in terms of her character’s skill set and when on screen with an icon like Cruise.

The villain in this film, played to perfection by Sean Harris, is equal parts creepy and fascinating and thankfully more than just one-dimensional.

That’s not to say there isn’t action, this is Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible after all, and within the first five minutes of the film Ethan is hanging off the side of a plane that is taking off from a runway. The beautiful thing is all the action in the film has purpose and fuels the progress of the story as opposed to focussing as many cameras as possible on an explosion a la blockbuster director Michael Bay.

Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie’s background as a cinematographer before he became a director pays off admirably as the entire film looks visually amazing without detracting from its story or cast.

One would be forgiven for expecting this film to be a simple, by-the-numbers, cliché-filled piece of popcorn cinema that you forget as soon as the credits roll. What you get is a film that is equal parts action, espionage and character development. The question of the film is not can IMF triumph, but are they prepared to go as far as necessary.

If this is the tone and the standard for Mission: Impossible films for the years ahead then this writer personally can not wait for parts 6, 7 and onwards.

Reviewed by Adam Gerard
Twitter: @awordwithadam

Rating out of 10:  8.5

 

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