Paramount Pictures has been very aggressive in promoting Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, moving it forward from its original
Christmas Day release date and having much of the advanced publicity focusing
on a stunt that finds franchise star Tom Cruise hanging from the side of a
plane as it takes off and reaches an altitude of 5000 feet. No doubt, it’s a spectacular moment and
Christopher McQuarrie opens his film with it.Â
Yet, with so much focus on this single moment, I couldn’t help but
wonder if the movie would simply be a string of stylized action moments with
little substance.
There’s a bit more at play here than simply wowing audiences
– if just barely – and while the script by McQuarrie is buoyed by a clever
sense of wry humor, the espionage shenanigans that move the plot forward are
simply an amalgam of spy movie clichés.Â
Obviously, the filmmaker is aware of this as he leans heavily on stunt
coordinator Wade Eastwood to distract audiences from plot déjà vu, which would
surely set in were they given a moment to think.
This time out, Hunt is in pursuit of The Syndicate, a shadow
organization that he believes is responsible for a series of terrorist attacks.
Having stayed underground since the events in Ghost Protocal, the spy has
gone rogue, something of great concern to CIA director Hunley (Alec Baldwin),
who thinks the Syndicate doesn’t exist and has simply been fabricated by Hunt
to justify the existence of the Impossible Mission Team. Directing his
colleague William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) to bring him in, Hunt finds himself on
the run not simply from the Syndicate’s agents but those from his own
government as well. That a mysterious,
deadly woman (a very good Rebecca Ferguson) keeps popping up wherever Hunt is –
at times ready to kill him, at others to help him – only adds to the intrigue.
Double crosses and switchbacks occur with predictable
regularity and while the story itself is a bit of a rote exercise, there’s no
denying McQuarrie knows how to turn a phrase and just when to inject some much
needed humor to remind us that the film is supposed to be fun. Much of that comes from Simon Pegg as Benji
Dunn, the easily flustered computer hacker who Hunt, inexplicably, trusts with
his life. The banter these two engage in is natural, well-timed and quite funny
as the exasperation each expresses is based on the admiration and affection
they have for one another. Their scenes
help the film from becoming a pedestrian affair.
Eastwood’s work does as well, as movies of this sort live
and die by their action set pieces and Nation has them in spades. In addition to the aforementioned plane
stunt, which sets the standard high for thrills from the start, there’s a
spectacular chase scene on the streets of Morocco as well as an elaborate
break-in that involves underwater heroics. These moments all work exceptionally
well, far better in fact than scenes involving hand-to-hand combat that are
nothing more than a confusing muddle thanks to the spastic editing rhythm
employed or an assassination attempt at an Italian Opera House that runs far
too long. Fortunately, the film ends on a high-note with a clever climax, with
the added bonus of seeing Baldwin convincingly deliver one of the most
overwrought lines of dialogue in recent memory.
Though Rogue Nation has a derivative feel to it and
features an uncharacteristically detached performance from Cruise, it does
deliver the sort of gasp-inducing, popcorn thrills the franchise has become
famous for, which will likely please viewers around the world. Here’s hoping
that the next entry is able to find a fresh take on the series, something that
proves impossible here.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2015.
