‘Mission impossible: Rogue Nation’ is the fifth outing in the ‘Mission Impossible’ series; a series that, like a fine wine, seems to improve with age.
Tom Cruise returns as IMF agent, Ethan Hunt who is now in hiding as he tries to prove the existence of the secret organisation known as ‘The Syndicate’. With almost everyone, from the CIA to a wispily voiced Sean Harris against him, Ethan must unite with what friends he has left to stop this organisation.
Cruise is as good as he always is as Hunt and I challenge you to find an actor with the same level of commitment to stunt work and action scenes as Cruise. This gives director Christopher McQuarrie a much easier job in helming the film, which he does so beautifully. McQuarrie effortlessly creates jaw dropping set-pieces including what is the best motorcycle chase I’ve ever seen in any film.
The return of Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell instil a great sense of comradery amongst the team. They banter back and forth giving the whole film a refreshing sense of humour that never compromises the experience.
A mention must absolutely go to Rebecca Ferguson who completely owns the role of double agent Ilsa Faust. Ferguson is so capable in switching and out of the ‘sexy, seductive’ persona to the ‘badass fighter’ character. A very pleasant addition.
However the film does stumble in one major aspect and that is, its main villain. Sean Harris, who plays ‘evil man’ Solomon Lane, doesn’t do anything wrong, he does his best with what he has to work with. But that’s the problem, he doesn’t have much to work with. The character of Lane just isn’t well realised and you never get a great sense of his motivations. He’s just sort of an evil guy with his evil voice doing evil things.
This does not make Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. I would argue it is in fact the best in the series, combining all the good aspects of past Mission films in to one great, cohesive action extravaganza.
8/10