+ Best Action Movie of the Year
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| The stars of Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation light up this cool poster |
Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July (1989)) is back for the 5h chapter in the Mission: Impossible franchise, this time written and directed by New Jerseyite master filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher (2012)) with story by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3 (2013)).
Following dramatic events in recent cases, the US government decides to shut down the IMF, just as Ethan Hunt & Co. are getting near to a rogue pan-national terror organization of former agents, known as The Syndicate.
After Brad Bird's excellent 4th film in the M:I franchise, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), which competed with John Woo's Mission: Impossible II (2000) in being the best in the series, I went to the new film with some trepidation. - Could it live up to the preceding film?
Rogue Nation's opening scene is perhaps the film's greatest and a perfect hook: On a dull, flat field in Belarus, a high-tension situation surrounding a shipment of missiles on a plane taking off arises. As many will know, who have read snippets of M:I 5 related stories this past year, the situation ends up with Cruise hanging on the outside of the Airbus A400M Atlas as it takes off. The fact that we know that Cruise actually did this, suspended on the plane up to 5,000 feet in the air, makes the perfectly edited scene a giant thrill. He is our substitute in the movie; we are Cruise, and we can, thank goodness, 'perform' his feats with him on a safe distance from our theater seats. Thank God for Tom Cruise! - The royal opening naturally gets paired with Lalo Schifrin's classic, great theme, which composer Joe Kraemer (The Way of the Gun (2000)) weaves into his own suspenseful score at pivotal points in the film.
Rogue Nation continues as a strong action spy movie with phenomenal segments in and around the opera in Vienna, (Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson (Hercules (2014)) also did their own jump stunt from the roof of the building there); in Morocco, where Cruise's much publicized 6 minute dive scene, which he reportedly did for real without edits, plays out, (though it luckily doesn't last 6 minutes), followed by one of the most exciting chase scenes in years (also with Cruise doing much of his own driving); and later in London. All the spectacular sequences are infused with several state-of-the-art gadgets and beautiful photography by the great Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood (2007)).
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| Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise dish out some serious ass-whooping, (and take some themselves as well) in Christopher McQuarrie's masterful Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation |
Skeptics have frowned, because Cruise isn't 25 anymore, (he recently turned 53), and because this is # 5 in a franchise. Also, - up to you which of the above mentioned stunt escapades you choose to believe. Even Cruise obviously can't do this forever. (I just hope he doesn't kill himself doing one of these films one day. (The most dangerous thing that happened during filming of Rogue Nation seems to have been that he was nearly hit by a double-decker bus in London.)) But the fact is that he just did it again, and probably better than he ever has before in a major action movie. A giant spy action movie of today simply doesn't get any better than this.
Cruise leads a film like no-one else around, and this one just plays on all levels:
Behind him is an exciting cast: Simon Pegg (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)) has a bigger part now and lends his humanity and a first-rate performance to the film. Jeremy Renner (12 and Holding (2005)) continues as a more skeptical part of Hunt's team, and Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible (1996)) is fun to have back after being gone in the previous film. Cool, strong and very sexy Swede Ferguson has a juicy part as a capable woman walking a thin line; Tom Hollander (Gosford Park (2001)) is great as the British PM; Alec Baldwin (Aloha (2015)) ditto as tight-assed, but apparently not very dangerous, CIA director, Jens Hultén (Skyfall (2012)) is another punchy Swede; and other heavies are icy Brits Sean Harris (Deliver Us from Evil (2014)), who looks and sounds like a nasty child molester as the great, main villain here, and Simon McBurney (The Theory of Everything (2014)) as the deceitful MI6 director.
Crucially, the story is smart, it keeps moving with twists and turns along the way, and is even bumped by subtle references to such diverse elements as the Faust legend, SS Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)), the Turandot opera, Casablanca (1942) and the missing Malaysian Airlines MH370 airplane.
A few years later and Rogue Nation has aged a bit, not least because one holds it up against Cruise/McQuarrie's even better follow-up, Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018), and Cruise's complete triumph in Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
Related posts:
Christopher McQuarrie: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Jack Reacher (2012) - Highly entertaining, dark hero-vehicle for Tom Cruise (with Cruise)
Mission: Impossible franchise: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - Cruise and Bird's phenomenal action spectacle
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| Hang on, it's Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation! |
Cost.: 150 mil. $
Box office: Just opened, - not public yet
= Uncertainty
[But if there's any justice in the world, M:I 5 is gonna exceed expectations and make a giant megabuck. A recent, detrimental Scientology documentary is feared to have some sway with American audiences set against Cruise, but Film Excess doubts that this could really have serious impact on the 'Cruise control', which will settle across global box office this weekend. The film will not open in China, a key market, until September 8th. If possible, go see it in IMAX, in which the film is even more amazing.]
What do you think of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation?
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