Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Tom Cruise is older than Jon Stewart. That was in my mind while I watched Cruise, himself – not a double, hang on to the outside of an A400m Airbus as it takes off and starts flying at the start of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. By the end of 1962, when both men were in infancy, there was probably an equal infinitesimal chance that a mere 52 years later either would be desperately gripping the outside door handles of a plane in flight. And yet, it seems much likelier now that if you asked which man in August of 2015 would be retiring his talk show and which man would cling to an airplane, the latter would be Cruise, no? I have thought Tom Cruise more than a little insane since before this century began. This didn’t help.

But it was a fantastic stunt.

Every action spy franchise eventually reaches the James Bond stage, huh? There have been four Mission: Impossibles to date and while all starred  Tom Cruise doing the heavy lifting, this one is the first in which I felt the team concept of the Impossible Mission has left the building; these films are now The Fab Adventures of Ethan Hunt … and some others along for the ride. This is a shame as it took four Impossibles to find a winning formula and part of that was the teamwork involved: Simon Pegg gets to be Ethan’s on-site IT guy again, but Paula Patton has disappeared and Jeremy Renner is a walking suit. That means Pegg is your #2 team action guy. Fill in your own punchline here: ___________________.

The producers tried to hide the man behind the curtain in two ways – 1) they revived the corpse of Ving Rhames to assist with the IT and 2) they introduced a love interest in, gee, what do you call a mini-femme fatale? What’s French for injury? “Blessure.” Yeah, that’s it. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) is a femme blessure – she’s deadly, but not necessarily intent on such. Can’t have Bond film without a femme blessure. Love that name, btw, which conjures up the soul-selling opera and the Casablanca heroine both at once – and you’ll never guess what Moroccan city hosts the big intelligence theft action sequence.

So what happened in Rogue Nation and why with that plane-hanger opening wasn’t it as good as Ghost Protocol? Ethan drops the plane in London and immediately gets one of those self-destructive messages where we learn 1) Ethan has been Hunting the “Syndicate” for the past year. 2) The Syndicate is on to him and 3) Nighty night, Ethan. It’s five minutes in and I already have unresolved questions: So who has been funding the IMF missions? Where is the leak? These things always blow up in five seconds … that really limits the amount suspects, no? And why didn’t they just kill Ethan on the spot? And isn’t all of this just a big excuse for elaborate stunts and platonic passion? You want answers? Now, there’s your Mission: Impossible.

London-based slickster with looks you’ll be fond
Saving the world above and beyond
Of course there’s a girl
To set hearts awhirl
Are you sure this wasn’t James Bond?

Rated PG-13, 131 Minutes
D: Christopher McQuarrie
W: Christopher McQuarrie
Genre: American Bond
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Cruisers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The scientologist intolerant