2015 Films: #24. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

This was an iTunes rental that I watched on a flight from Baton Rouge to Chicago on December 21st. This installment marks the 5th installment of the Mission: Impossible Franchise with a 6th film to begin production in 2016. The picture was released on July 31st and took in over $55 million on its opening weekend and to date has grossed more than $682 million worldwide. Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed this installment (he's worked with Cruise before) that has Cruise,  Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames returning to their roles. Rounding out the is Adam Baldwin as CIA Director Alan Hunley, Rebecca Ferguson as femme fatale Isla Faust and Sean Harris as the main villain Solomon Lane.

After nearly 90 seconds of opening logos, the film opens with Ethan and Benji trying to thwart a takeoff of some stolen Russian warheads. While Brandt is in a Senate hearing about the fate of the IMF program. The IMF has been without a Secretary for a few installments and the CIA Director Hunley is hot to shut the program down and roll it into the CIA. Hunley feels that the IMF operates without rules or accountability and any success is just luck. After the mission, Hunt is in London for his debrief and it captured. Hunt escapes and warns Brandt but Brandt informs him that the IMF has been disbanded. Hunt goes dark since he is now a wanted man.

Hunt ends up in Vienna and recruits Benji to help him (Benji has to undergo weekly polygraphs to prove to Hunley that he doesn't know where Hunt is) and they thwart an assassination attempt on the Austria Chancellor. While doing heroic stuff, Hunt runs into a mysterious woman, Isla Faust, who helped him escape in London. She informs him that she too is undercover and that they're both after Soloman Lane (the leader of the Syndicate, a global criminal organization that is the anti-IMF). Ethan throws her from the car to keep up appearances. However, the bad guys had a backup plan and blow up the Chancellor as he is taken away from the opera house. Ethan is in big trouble now. Brandt gets Luther and they go to help Ethan.

The gang ends up in Morocco where Ethan and Benji meet up with Faust to break into Lane's vault where he keeps some over complicated something that's bad for the world's spies. Of course the break won't be easy as it requires a ridiculously over complicated plan that relies heavily on incredible timing. Ethan nearly dies and Isla resuscitates him, only to steal the file or whatever and take off. The obligatory car/motorcycle chase through the very narrow and winding streets of Casablanca ensues. It's a cool scene but I there wasn't moment where the outcome was in danger. Ethan and Benji survive a horrific and unsurvivable crash and Isla gets away. Or does she? Ethan grabs a bike from a henchman who was going to kill him but was he himself killed when Brandt runs him over. Then Cruise gets into the contractual motorcycle chase but Isla does get away this time.

I can see where one could become distracted in a pursuit.

The finale takes place in London and it involves disguises, misdirection and some cool high tech stuff. Good guys win. Back in the States Hunley is named the new IMF Secretary.

The plot is straight from the 1st installment. Ethan is deemed a bad guy by the CIA and has to pull an elaborate heist in order to draw out the bad guys. He does the same thing here. How the film got a 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating is beyond me, It was fun to watch, the gadgets are cool,the visual effects were great and the stunt work was incredible. Much like the IMF themselves, the filmmakers used misdirection to cover up a an old plot. Cruise rides a motorcycle without a helmet, again and he ups the ante on the stunts by hanging from an airplane...

Give credit where it's due, Cruise does his own stunts and they get more dangerous (this is what you can achieve when you reach the level of Scientology that Cruise has). Cruise wants his films to succeed, or least make a lot of money, and he does all he can to make that happen. Another film where you're getting the same film as a previous installment. Since they don't call this film Mission: Impossible 5, there are moviegoers that may not have seen the original. Add the fact the original came out in 1996 and feel free to press repeat. Plus it seemed that they were desperate to beat Spectre to the global criminal organization thing. The Syndicate, that was unoriginal. Even Solomona Lane looks like Mr. White...

Mr. Lane, 

meet Mr. White, you guys should work together.

To be fair, the Spectre groundwork was being laid in Casino Royale in 2006. The scene where Ethan discovers the Syndicate is at an opera house in Vienna.Bond discovers Quantum, an offshoot of Spectre, at an opera. Both Ethan and Bond kill bad guys at the opera and then get blamed for killing someone. So the film is guilty of stealing from other franchises as well as its own.