Once Again, Mission Possible-Tom Cruises’ “Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation -A Film Review  (2015)

DVD Review

By Movie Critic Sam Lowell

Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Alex Baldwin, 2015

Recently in reviewing an earlier film in the this Mission: Impossible, the third one, I noted that in reviewing Harrison Ford’s cinematic version of the popular 1960s television series The Fugitive from 1989 (are you following me) there were several films that had been made from old time television series and that some were able to cross, to “pass” and others were not. (The action has gone the other way as well with a film like say American Graffiti spawning a number of television series and they in turn spawning others). The film (now part of a seemingly never-ending film series) under review, Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, is a similar example of the flipping process although the technological gizmos used in that long ago television series which seemed so exotic and improbable are today’s standard fare for, uh, eight-year olds delights. Although the missions were perhaps more interesting (and more politically attuned to then current Cold War realities) than now with a greater emphasis on the team as an ensemble rather that one “hot-dog” Ethan Hunt using the team as fodder for his exploits

That said every once in a while I like to grab as I did with that prior film an action-packed adventure thriller and no question this one is a vehicle for the action every minute title. I have not seen the other films in this series and so this review makes no pretense to have an overview of the series or the place of this film in the eyes of other critics but this one had a reasonably interesting story-line along with that mile a minute action.

   

The play here centers around trying finally to put a nefarious organization, the Syndicate, made up of, well, rogue elements from every known intelligence operation in the world and which is running amok out of action The operation is led by a “turned” British intelligence officer. Everybody is trying to bring that bad guy down including the British sending in an agent, a foxy agent to boot who knows what is what, Ilsa, played by Rebecca Ferguson, to infiltrate the operation. Along the way she has to do a lot of tough things to prove her “loyalty” to the Syndicate.

Problem is that IMF, or rather Ethan Hunt (I don’t have to give Tom Cruise as the actor playing the role at this point do I?), and his team are working the same street and at times working at cross purposes with the bloody British, with Ilsa too. Compounding all of this is the hard fact that Ethan and crew are rogues too since the IMF cowboys have been taken down a notch and defunded. Taken down by guess who-the C.I.A. in a little interagency squabble by its director, played by Alec Baldwin before he became Donald Trump. Not to worry though if anybody but that eight year old mentioned earlier was worried the crew will stand up and get the bad guys-get them bad, real bad like always. Don’t worry about the thinness of the story line in places and the various ruses and false leads and enjoy the bang, bang action for a couple of hours if you need an action thriller fix every once in a while just like me.  They say another film in the series is coming so if you like this constant action watch out for it. I think I will retire after these two.   

Yeah, no question that Davian went over the line grabbing Julie, went a little crazy even for somebody in his line of work and would pay with his life for putting Julie through the meat-grinder. And he does but guess what that Musgrave who gave Ethan the assignment had been “turned” and also had to be taken out. Guess by who? Yeah, Julie. This Ethan-Julie marriage latch-up was made in heaven.