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.
