With the franchise in its fifth chapter, Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible â€" Rogue Nation†rates as a James Bond wannabe.
Interspersed with spectacular action sequences and exotic locations are a beautiful if deadly female agent, a semi-comprehensible plot and soaring riffs on Lalo Schifrin’s theme music â€" its only connection at this point with the TV series that was its original inspiration.
“Rogue Nation†opens as Ethan Hunt (Cruise) must destroy a military cargo plane in Belarus by jumping on a wing and holding tight. As movie star stuntwork goes, it’s almost ho-hum.
“Rogue†instantly jumps to a London vinyl record shop where Cruise meets a comely clerk in a scene with distinct echoes of Humphrey Bogart’s bookstore quickie with Dorothy Malone in “The Big Sleep.â€
Romance is not in the cards here, only a diabolical d eath as Hunt is gassed and captured by the nefarious Syndicate kingpin Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).
Hunt awakes, bound and stripped to the waist, to be tortured as he meets his nemesis â€" or is she his savior? â€" Sweden’s Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, who may or may not be a double agent.
Meanwhile back in D.C., the Impossible Mission Force, represented by Jeremy Renner’s Brandt, is being grilled by CIA chief Alan Hunley (a portentously jowly Alec Baldwin), who mocks the IMF for its pursuit of the phantom Syndicate. He doesn’t believe Lane’s evil global enterprise actually exists and gets the IMF shut down.
The action switches to Vienna’s Opera House for a live performance, with Hunt’s comic relief tech whiz Benji (Simon Pegg) present.
Again co-writer/Âdirector Christopher McQuarrie (whose “The Usual Suspects†screenplay won him an Oscar) echoes a classic Hollywood thriller: The Albert Hall sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 “ The Man Who Knew Too Much,†in which an assassin’s kill shot will be disguised as cymbals clash.
Only Hunt finds himself backstage tracking not one but three killers. As he scrambles to stop them all with Benji’s help, Ilsa turns up again.
From there the now reassembled IMF team â€" including Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell â€" goes to Casablanca for a fantastically intricate, literally breathÂtaking, underwater sequence set in a turbine with a deadly countdown.
Cruise, very fit at 53, gently nods to time’s passing with an all too mortal Hunt. While no match for its brilliant predecessor, the 2011 “Ghost Protocol,†and marred by the occasional dead-air speech about the Syndicate as a global threat, “Rogue Nation†gets its job done with style.
(“Mission: Impossible â€" Rogue Nation†contains sadistic violence and partial nudity.)
Rating: 100% based on 975 ratings. 91 user reviews.
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