Mission Impossible 5 - Rogue Nation

I am not a Tom Cruise fan. He gives the worse celebrity interviews because he laughs at everything. I find him to be a tough actor to like in a film also because he is never a 'character' - he is always Tom Cruise the mega celebrity with a Hollywood movie machine behind him. After Ghost Protocol, they could have just coasted but instead they ramped up the action and adventure and created a winner with the fifth Mission Impossible movie in the series.

This is a good spy movie. Everything you expect Mission Impossible to be. I loved Edge Of Tomorrow and for Tom to thrill me two movies in a row is a gift. I do loves me a good escape scene and with Tom on the run there must be a dozen ways that he ingeniously avoids death.

I love a movie that sends the good guy on the run from the start. A rogue organization called the Syndicate has given Tom Cruise a mission - find them or they will find and kill him. I suspect they just want to recruit him. He is too valuable an asset to just toss away. Time to gather the old team together as their IMF funding by the US government has been cut. They are truly on their own.

Some of the fight scene are cut a little too quickly and that takes some of the edge of the combat. I do like the variety of ways that Ethan is able to avoid his pursuers. They really pushed the quality of the stunts to a whole new level and redeemed Cruise in my eyes. He looks a bit weary from all the impossible action that he has to do to get the mission done. But make no mistakes, the mission WILL get done.

The exotic locations only add to the superspy feel of this thing. I hate that Jeremy Renner had to first take a backseat to the action with Ving Rhames. None of them are needed at all to tell the story because Tom's Ethan Hunt indestructible. Nothing kills this guy who should be wearing a helmet ALL THE TIME because of all the head injuries he has taken. He even fell out of a two story window and doesn't so much as break a finger.

Even the CIA, led by asshole Alec Baldwin, is after Hunt. Where does a man go for help when the whole world of law enforcement is out to get him? With a little help from his friends, of course. Simon Pegg,Vin Diesel, Jeremy Renner and some girl. Now this girl I don't trust and I hate that she can't give him information. It's the lamest thing lazy screenwriter does. But Rebecca Ferguson is a nice addition once she decide whose side she is actually on. She also I part of one of the best (if few) Man on Woman battles that I have ever seen.

 

There are many little spy gadgets that I wish existed in real life. I love the automatic door opener.

They try to keep the set pieces and action choreography fresh and that is tough after FIVE Mission Impossible movies. The bit of business at the Opera was slick and thrilling. So is the motorcycle chase through the twisty mountain roads of Morocco. Great stuff.

Tom takes a lot of beatings that would kill a normal man and NO WAY would he survive THIS plane stunt in real life. But that is not the point here, is it? It's all about bigger, better, more dangerous, more insane and as far from realistic as it needs to be to remain enormously entertaining throughout.

Of course all of this is perfect balloon juice to allow Cruise to access a supercomputer that is supposed to be unhackable. Easy peezy lemon squeezy" for these guys. They are the IMF. It's what they do everyday when you and I are scratching our assess.

 

 

They try for comedy but it doesn't feel right. Ethan and his death wish are a poor mix with comedy. The movie works best when it looks like he has no way out. Run Tom run. It's the secret to his winning formula.

 

Everything has to be last minute for all of this hogwash to work. And I use hogwash in it's most loving definition. At two hours this film is a bit long but I liked watching the plan come together even when it shouldn't. Reminds me of an old Ludlum novel where everything is in the right place at the right time for things to work out for the good guys in the end.