As my friend Tom would say, directing a Mission Impossible movie is like a doorknob. Everyone gets a turn. This is so true, but not really in a good way. While this franchise undoubtedly improves with each new installment, this wasn’t always the case. My biggest problem with the first four movies of the franchise was how different they were from one another. I have never watched a sequel that was so inherently different in directing, storytelling, cinematography, sound, and everything else from the original than Mission Impossible 2 was from Mission Impossible. John Woo’s Hong Kong-style martial arts action flick was so far completely different from the Brian DePalma intelligent, well-crafted, big-budget adaptation of the brilliant spy television series that ran for seven years in the late 1960s that it felt like the two movies weren’t even related. I don’t necessarily oppose changing a director (though I don’t love it), but I oppose changing styles. Plenty of franchises have had different directors that have made that work (most notably the James Bond franchise, which is similar to Mission Impossible), but many more haven’t.
Throw in J.J. Abrams (Mission Impossible III) and Brad Bird (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol), and you’ve got four different directors, each with a completely different vision from one another, for the first four movies of the series. I expected the franchise to die at three films, but I am grateful it got a new life with 2011’s Ghost Protocol (93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation introduces its fifth director in the franchise (Christopher McQuarrie – The Way of the Gun) but the first to direct multiple installments (2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout). The franchise has become a series of cleverly written and executed spy action thrillers. And with its cast of A-list movie stars, each movie is a unique experience and a fun escape from reality.
Tom Cruise (Valkyrie, Top Gun: Maverick) returns as Ethan Hunt for the franchise’s fifth installment. Hunt is certainly up there with James Bond or Jason Bourne for your favorite movie spy. However, Cruise infuses Hunt with much more humor and personality than the more serious Bond and Bourne. And it works. The Ethan Hunt in this franchise feels like a completely different man than when he debuted the character 19 years ago. Hunt is still working for the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) and still has his trusty team of Luther (Ving Rhames – Dawn of the Dead, Pulp Fiction), Benji (Simon Pegg – Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), the head of IMF William Brandt (Jeremy Renner – Wind River, The Hurt Locker), among others.
In the film’s opening sequence, the team successfully stops a box of missiles from landing in the wrong hands. Hunt then finds himself in London. Upon receiving confirmation that the Syndicate was behind the attempted heist as he thought, he learns that the Syndicate is also in the know as they validate the message. Tear gas then fills up the glass booth Ethan is in, and this is when we meet Solomon Lane (Sean Harris – Prometheus, Macbeth), our new villain. What’s his play? That we don’t know yet. And we also know that Ethan has no idea who he is. He only knows what his face looks like.
So, how does the movie get the title of Mission Impossible 5? While Hunt is being tortured for intelligence, while in London, the IMF back in Washington, DC, is being shut down. It is determined through a joint meeting between the CIA, headed by Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin – The Cooler, The Departed) and a US Senate committee that the IMF had been operating on luck much more so than in skill in recent years, and its luck had run out. Outside of Ethan, the team is assigned different duties, with Benji stuck behind a desk. Ethan is MIA. It’s six months later, and no one knows where he is. As an audience, we know a lot more. We learn that Hunt has escaped from being tortured by Solomon through the help of an unknown in Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson – Life, The Girl on the Train). We don’t know her motives, only that she secretly turned on Solomon to help Ethan. We learn later who she is, but I won’t reveal that here. Benji is required to take weekly polygraph tests to prove that he does not know where Ethan is.
Ethan believes that the Austrian President is going to be assassinated at the Vienna Opera House. He tricks Benji into thinking he won free tickets there so that he’ll continue to pass polygraph tests. Once in Vienna, the two attempt to foil the assassination attempt. We meet Ilsa again, too, and Ethan is still uncertain if she is good or bad. We learn that the man behind the assassination attempt and other random disasters also has plans to take down the world and create a Rogue Nation. We also learn that the CIA knows what happened in Vienna and now knows where Ethan is. Brandt recruits Luther to help find Ethan before the CIA does. Now aware that Solomon is behind this disaster, Ethan is hell-bent on finding him before he can inflict more damage on the innocent. From this point, it becomes an intelligent cat-and-mouse game. Can Ethan and Benji hunt down Solomon before the CIA can hunt down Ethan and Benji? The story is legit. As an audience member, you are invested in the story, even though you are pretty confident how it will all end. The action is fabulous. Of course, the Mission Impossible theme plays in the background during much of the tension. We get some incredible, unique sequences along the way. When we learn of Solomon’s past, we become aware that the way to crush the Syndicate that Solomon helped establish is on a drive in a secure facility that is impossible to break into. Well, we know that the IMF will at least try to break into the facility, and again, we’re pretty sure they’ll be successful.
All of this does not take away from the fun of this film. While the ending of a movie like this isn’t in doubt, it doesn’t mean there aren’t some tense moments along the way. Is it Argo? Of course, it isn’t. This is a fun, popcorn spy flick movie. You’ll leave smiling and satisfied with the two hours and $15 you devoted to the film. This is Cruise’s best character. Granted, it’s the only one we’ve seen on film more than once (at least until next summer when Maverick returns in the Top Gun sequel). Yes, Cruise is an action star now. He’s not the same man who wowed us in Oscar-worthy roles like Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, and Jerry Maguire or his other more highly regarded performances like in Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Risky Business, or The Last Samurai. He’s almost purely an action star now, and that’s okay. At first, I didn’t like it. I thought these films were hijacking us from one of the great actors of our time. But while Cruise can be very good, I would no longer call him great. And now I’m okay with him doing roles that feel so similar to one another (Oblivion, Jack Reacher, Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow, Knight and Day). It allows us to have the same level of fun watching Cruise films he has in making them for us. While these moves will rarely end up on anyone’s end-of-the-year top 10 list, Cruise still brings it to each move, and there are few where you feel like you just wasted hours of your life by watching them. He’s an actor who stars in movies that let us escape from reality and have fun.
Plot 8/10
Character Development 7/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 8/10
Screenplay 9/10
Directing 8.5/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 7/10
83%
B+
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout
- Spectre
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- Salt
- Jack Reacher