Review: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation Defies The Odds
- Jul 26, 2018
- 2 min read
Franchise failure is inevitable. Attack Of The Clones, The Crystal Skull, A Good Day To Die Hard, Thor The Dark World, Transformers 2 through 5, Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor and every Pirates Of The Caribbean sequel, to name a few. Apparently Tom Cruise is some kind of sequel god though.
Following the greatest opening scene in any film ever, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) finds himself hot on the tail of The Syndicate, a global shadow organization not dissimilar to IMF itself. But when the mysterious Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) identifies attacks IMF from within, and captures Hunt, Ethan finds himself at the hands of Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), desperately trying to uncover an international conspiracy with only his trusted friend Benji (Simon Pegg) to help.
With the acception of Jackie Chan, Tom Cruise is the stunt master, and in the West he is a man without equal, undeniably so. This time he’s crawling his way around the outside of a mobile carrier plane, holding his breath for an obscenely long time, getting in fights atop precarious light fixtures or a blisteringly fast motorcycle chase, it’s all Cruise, and at 53, it’s all the more impressive. Throw in the fact that it seems like he has no intentions of slowing down anytime soon, and you’ve got yourself one of history's greatest actors headlining the greatest action franchise to date. The man is a powerhouse, insane in the best way possible.
Director Christopher McQuarrie doesn’t have the largest filmography around, coming in with a total of four films under his belt, three of which a headlined by Cruise, and the two clearly work well together. McQuarrie’s steady hand and quick eye go perfectly alongside Cruise’s desire for big action that featuring himself. As egotistical as it may seem, it makes every fight, every chase, all the more thrilling. There’s no quick cuts to hide stuntmen, not whip pans or shaky cam to cover poorly acted action. It’s all there, on screen, in the most glorious way possible.
Rogue Nation is, thus far, Mission Impossible’s greatest film, by no small margin. While the villain isn’t very interesting, and the plot isn’t overly engaging, that’s not the point. This new Mission Impossible exists to deliver some of cinema’s best action, and at that, it excels.
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