Movie Review: Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

The Mission: Impossible franchise is ageing much like Tom Cruise himself: inexplicably, as if by a wizard’s touch.

It’s been a rocky road (for man and movies, but let’s stick to the movies), beginning with Brian De Palma’s disorienting first entry, John Woo’s absurd, terrible second, and J.J. Abrams’ place-holding third. However, since Brad Bird’s gleeful Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible suddenly seems vital again, nearly 20 years after it debuted, and 50 years after the TV show that ostensibly acted as inspiration aired.

Instalment number five, Rogue Nation, sees writer-director Christopher McQuarrie at the helm, having likely been auditioned on the set of Jack Reacher. He’s a decent, malleable fit, and like Bird and Abrams before him, isn’t distinctive enough to distract from M: I’s true auteur: restless star and producer, Cruise.

An underrated actor, a savvy industry vet and a needless daredevil, he seemingly drove much of the promotion for Rogue Nation during the actual shoot, committing himself to a number of dangerous stunts (like hanging on to the side of a plane as it achieves lift-off), probably picturing the posters and behind-the-scenes vignettes it would inspire.

He maybe took a leaf out of the Fast and Furious playbook too - that other recently-resurrected franchise – by running around a number of stunning international locales in the hopes of selling the film worldwide.

Rogue Nation is even brazen enough to visit Casablanca. It’s always going to be a race for second place when talking best movies set in that infamous Moroccan city. Still, Cruise proves here he’ll stop at nothing to secure the silver, including potential death.

This guy really wants to entertain you.

Rogue Nation sees Cruise’s Ethan Hunt on the run and working incognito, as per usual. Yet, this time around, he has Alec Baldwin’s bureaucratic CIA director breathing down his neck, insistent on shutting down his Impossible Missions Force just as they’re closing in on terrorist organisation The Syndicate.

With Hunt MIA, his colleagues Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) have to answer for his perceived recklessness.

That leaves Hunt to track down the nefarious Syndicate and its mysterious leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, resembling an otter in a turtle neck). He finds a potentially untrustworthy partner in deep-cover agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a skilled fighter and fast-thinking triple-crosser. (Though, if she’s so smart, surely she should have known her handlers had duplicitous intentions when they gave her the fake surname ‘Faust’.)

The search for Lane takes Ethan from Austria, where he intervenes in the potential assassination of the Chancellor during a night at the opera, to, eventually, Casablanca, where Ilsa is waiting to set him on his most impossible mission to date. She wouldn’t be the first Ilsa to cause a man strife in Morocco.

McQuarrie may not have much flair, but the Oscar-winning Usual Suspects screenwriter knows how to bring a bit of edge; the kind we haven’t seen since De Palma’s brutally violent Impossible flick. The violence isn’t necessarily graphic; more, consistent. It’d be hard for Ethan and Ilsa to justify the gratuity of their murders, if there was indeed any oversight in their field of spycraft. (Luckily, there isn’t, so have at it guys!)

Cinematographer Robert Elswit adds to the picture's slightly darker tone as well, and his moody, Third Man-evoking photography of a climactic foot-chase through London is especially attractive.

Renner and Rhames don’t really have a lot to do here; the former continuing his work in the Avengers and Bourne Legacy of waiting in the wings for his more charismatic co-stars to roll an ankle or something.

The whole reason for the season is Cruise. Even if his mandate in real-life is to continually appear superhuman – again, he held onto a plane as it achieved lift-off – his on-screen characters have room for vulnerability.

Ethan Hunt is not unflappable. He is totally flappable. Ultimately, it’s the biggest difference between Hunt and, say, Bond: it’s when Hunt is flapped, he does his best work. Following on from Edge of Tomorrow, where Cruise defied type to play a very reluctant and easy-to-kill middle manager caught in an intergalactic war, I’m starting to think it’s in the realm of the flapped that Cruise does his best work too.

Besides Cruise and a number of spectacular set pieces, the highlight of Rogue Nation is Rebecca Ferguson. Her Ilsa Faust is the most beguiling character this series has ever invented. By virtue of the spy genre’s flippancy with female characters, it’s unlikely we’ll see her reprise the role in Mission: Impossible 6. Sure, Jeremy Renner will probably get another run, but Ferguson will have to find work elsewhere.

That’s a real shame. Cruise, now 53, might only have one more of these missions in him. I’d watch this Ilsa go back to Casablanca anytime.

4/5

In cinemas July 30. Rated M for action violence.