While the action films that will be hitting theaters later this month could potentially change my mind, for now I am giving Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation the title of ‘best summer action blockbuster’ of 2015.
While most movie franchises lose their creative edge with each succeeding film, the Mission Impossible film series, which began back in 1996, has found a way to stay fresh.
Rogue Nation, the fifth film of the franchise, is the funniest, and it features the best stunts (I won’t spoil them), the best suspense, the coolest gadgets, and a plot that moviegoers can get behind.
A criticism that can be leveled at the early Mission Impossible films is that each of them suffered from a murky and incoherent storylines. It wasn’t always clear why characters were doing certain things. In this film, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team attempt to eradicate a dangerous organization known as the Syndicate. It is a group that is hell-bent on obliterating the Impossible Mission Force (IMF).
Hunt is also considered as a renegade agent by CIA director William Hunley (Alec Baldwin), a man who spends most of the film trying to disband the IMF. Every piece of action and dialogue contributes to this central plot, and that keeps the audience invested.
The cast deserves high marks for helping make this film soar.
Cruise once again brings hard charging charisma and a comedic touch to the role of Ethan Hunt. You have to admire that Cruise, 53, still has a zest to perform extreme life threatening stunts. My experience of watching some of these epic action sequences are elevated knowing that he, and not a stunt person, are performing them.
He really seems to love this character, and that is why he keeps coming back for more. He has already announced that there will be a sixth film.
Simon Pegg, as usual, provides the most laughs as computer wizard and gizmo expert Benji Dunn. He also brings pathos to this film too.
The breakout character of this film is Ilsa Faust, as played by Rebecca Ferguson. She brings the seductiveness, ambiguousness and the fire that Anne Hathaway brought to the role of Catwoman in the Dark Knight Rises in 2012. She is also afforded some terrific action sequences and the on-screen chemistry between her and Cruise is electric.
While they don’t get as juicy of parts, it is nice to see Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames return to their roles as William Brandt and Luther Stickell respectively.
Five popcorn buckets out of five
