Movie Review - Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation *** (out of 5) (PG-13) It’s true. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, the big-screen successor to Peter Graves’ head of TV’s original IM Force, Jim Phelps, for the fifth time. That’s one shy of Sean Connery’s turns as James Bond; one more than Harrison Ford’s gigs as Indiana Jones; equal to the total of spy flicks in which Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan was played by four different actors, including Ford.

Formulas must be followed. Iconic theme songs must be deployed. Evildoers and their schemes for global domination must escalate. Check, check and check. And let’s not forget that Cruise, like Chuck Norris before him, must be surrounded by a cast that makes Hunt’s height appear to reach a higher percentile than that of the guy who plays him.

Hunt and his team (returning veterans Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner) open with a splashy mission before the opening theme, in the style of 007 and other expensive spy films. Despite its long record of successes, the CIA Director (Alec Baldwin) convinces Congress to de-fund and disband that covert sub-agency; pooh-poohs Hunt’s claims that The Syndicate exists, much less poses a threat akin to the likes of SMERSH, KAOS, SPECTRE, Hydra, or (insert your favorite global-domination job creator for spies, superheroes, Maxwell Smart, etc.); and forces Hunt to hide from his own gummint while proving the conspiracy on his own dime.

Erelong, via a six-month fast-forward, Hunt is poised to stop the creepy dude behind The Syndicate’s sinister blueprint for destabilizing the world we know. For nearly two hours, he and the team chase the baddies through several exotic locales while also dodging Baldwin’s CIA minions, leading to scenarios that are far-fetched even for such espionage fare. The plot is aided by dangled questions of whether several key players’ hats should really be white or black, and what harm any deception will cause. Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie likely served Cruise better when they teamed up for Jack Reacher. That one also ran a bit longer than his script required, but more coherently. A few intense action sequences were dinged by poor lighting or choppy edits, obscuring who was doing what to whom. Can’t tell the players without a legible scorecard, eh?

Having picked those nits, the film still delivers suitable doses of action, humor, intrigue and scenery that should satisfy franchise and/or Cruise fans, and tide them over until Round 6. That’s more of a when than an if. (7/31/15)

B.Qy/&Q