Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Stars: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames
Four stars
There's some interesting talk in the cleverly satisfying script for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation about the element of luck.
As in, how much is luck a factor in the success of Ethan Hunt and his IMF cohorts? After all, in the last movie they merely saved us from a nuclear holocaust. Was it talent, hard work or dumb luck?
Whatever you decide about that, there is no debate about one thing: when it comes to Tom Cruise and his durability as an action hero, luck has little to do with it. The guy’s an action star extraordinaire – and it’s not luck or chance that got him there, but work and smarts and yes, some swashbuckling derring-do.
And whatever you may think of Cruise and his complex off-screen persona, let's at least give him this: at age 53, he and his Ethan Hunt character are, if anything, getting more fun to watch. They make Rogue Nation not just a serviceable summer action blockbuster, but entertainment worth your inflated ticket price.
Let’s give kudos to a few of the other folk involved, too, starting with director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie, who, like each previous director in the franchise (in order, Brian De Palma, John Woo, J J Abrams and Brad Bird), puts his own stamp on the proceedings.
McQuarrie (who found fame as the writer of the The Usual Suspects, and wrote and directed 2012's Jack Reacher, also starring Cruise) does this with a wry script, which often makes fun of what's happening to the characters, and some seriously entertaining action sequences
These include a complicated assassination sequence set in Vienna's glittering opera house during a lavish production of Puccini's Turandot (parents: here's a chance to add some opera appreciation to your kids' summer holidays – sort of like hiding the broccoli in the brownie mix).
Also invaluable to the movie's success is returning MI veteran Simon Pegg as Benji, the wisecracking (and safe-cracking) computer whizz, who provides a crucial dose not only of humour but also of humanity.
Welcome newcomers to the series include Alec Baldwin, as a pompous CIA boss with deliciously dry delivery, and Rebecca Ferguson, making the most – and then some – of the obligatory female role. Ferguson was – get this – born in Sweden, her character is called Ilsa here and, yes, movie buffs, she does travel to Casablanca, too.
Rogue Nation doesn't ease you into the action slowly. It begins with the scene you're most likely to have heard about (and seen in the trailer and on our cover), because it involves Cruise's own stunt work, in which the actor is on the wing of a jet as it takes off, and then his legs slip, leaving him hanging on by only his fingertips as the landscape beneath gets tinier and tinier.
Why is Hunt on the wing? Well, that’s what happens, annoyingly, when you try to board a plane after take-off.
And we’re just getting started. We soon learn that the IMF is being disbanded – and the timing is predictably terrible. Hunt is on to something really bad: the Syndicate, a nefarious group of former spies led by a vague, sinister leader (Sean Harris). That the Syndicate is not attached to one particular country – it is the Rogue Nation of the title – has an eerie resonance in today’s world.
Hunt soon finds himself chained to a ceiling in a London dungeon. Enter Ilsa, who obviously is attracted to Hunt and has a tendency to save his life, but who is clearly not working with him, either.
Later, Hunt finds himself underwater, holding his breath for an impossibly long time while fighting an impossibly strong current and many other things.
It shouldn’t surprise you by now to hear that Cruise apparently flirted with on-set danger here, too, while doing the stunt. It’s impossible to deny that this knowledge adds to the fun.
When Hunt was hanging off that plane, my 12-year-old viewing partner – who has grown up in the age of computer-generated big-screen wizardry – snorted and confidently whispered: “Ha, that’s totally a green screen.”
I was happy to be able to whisper back: “Nope. That’s just Tom Cruise.”
* AP
