Many years ago Tom Cruise was asked why he was paid over $50 million for Mission Impossible III, he just smiled smugly and said, “because I’m worth it.” Regardless of how you feel about Scientology’s most valuable player, when it comes to Mr. Cruise, he is kind of has point.
Yes, Mission
Impossible is back for a fifth installment. The movie series based on a TV
series that was Americas answer to James Bond (well, until Jason Bourne came
along) and once again, it is filled with crazy gadgets, crazier stunts and
people telling Tom Cruise something is impossible only to prove them wrong in
the next scene.
This Mission
Impossible sees the formation of a new terrorist organisation known as “The
Syndicate”, a rogue group of former agents looking to cause anarchy through
highly funded and highly unregulated mischief. So the only way to stop said
“syndicate” is to send another highly funded and highly unregulated team known
as the IMF after them, that is until big balls Alec Baldwin, the new head of
the CIA shuts down the IMF and force Cruise’s Ethan Hunt to go on the run....
Can’t the IMF Division ever just work in tandem in one of these films?
We have the return
of Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, which is great to see however; it
is only Simon Pegg who gets any decent screen time. Jeremy Renner and Alec
Baldwin are both criminally underused in the film for both their action and
acting chops respectively, which is a real shame when you cast such talent. Both
have their big moment, but they still feel very peripheral to the rest of the
movie. Now films can live and die on a villain, Phillip Seymour Hoffman proved
that in the third movie, unfortunately this time around the enigmatic villain
is certainly a mystery but doesn’t make his presence felt in the film even when
he’s on screen, which is a pity because Sean Harris can play a great part if
the material is there. Thankfully, this doesn’t hurt the movie too much thanks
to the addition of relative newcomer Rebecca Ferguson who really shines as a
possible double-agent, maybe triple agent, could very well be a quadruple-agent
based on the number of twists her character takes. As a female lead, this is
new ground for the Mission Impossible series because we have a strong and
complicated female character who could be a hero, or could be a villain. She’s
like a British Black Widow, playing off against and matching Tom Cruise, which
adds a great dynamic to the film, as opposed to being the usual eye-candy/love
interest for ‘The Cruiser’.
We have the usual
range of exotic and picturesque locations along with the huge stunt sequences,
and this is where Tom Cruise’s worth really comes into play. Tom Cruise is
famous for doing all his own stunts, he doesn’t shy away from letting people
know this, but in this day and age, it’s rare to see an actor jump head first
into such dangerous and jaw-dropping stunts that aren’t CGI f&*k-fests.
Just look at the last two Die Hard films and see how unnatural Bruce Willis
looks in all his big “stunt scenes”, it’s just green screen bullsh*t that
defies logic, physics and gravity. Cruise hung on to the side of a plane as it
took off and even trained to hold his breath for over six minutes. That’s why
he is paid so much, because you always get that extra commitment to the action
scenes.
The action is
great throughout and definitely what you’ve come to expect from the series, but
it’s the non-action scenes that tend to make the 2 hour and 10 minute run time
drag. These scenes probably wouldn’t have felt so sluggish if the dialogue had
more urgency or if exposition was handled on the move so that you didn’t feel
like you were waiting for the next big chase or explosion. But going back to
the action, it is also par for the course that many of the big action sequences
end up being pretty stupid when you actually think about it. Often you find
that after a thrilling chase or big over the top stunt that the ‘twist’ after
the big action sequence makes the whole scene feel redundant - although it is
fun nonetheless.
It's a franchise
that has been running for 20 years and, to be fair, has not wavered in quality,
and that's a pretty impressive feat considering that the first film was
directed by Brian DePalma. It might not be the best of the series but even a
lukewarm Mission Impossible film is still a good Mission Impossible film, hell,
it's even still better than most action movies made today thanks to Tom Cruise’s
charisma.
Mission Impossible:
Rogue Nation gets Three and Three Quarter Stars out of Five (or Three and Three
Quarter scene-stealing British Black Widows - that I may or may not have a
little crush for)
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