4.0 out of 5 stars
An entertaining movie but not a great one.
Reviewed in the United States on 5 January 2022
It looks bad for the Impossible Missions Force. Cranky CIA Director Alec Baldwin has disbanded the IMF, Tom Cruise is an outlaw, The Syndicate is bent on world destruction, and a double agent (Rebecca Ferguson) is the only link between IMF, MI6, and the supervillain. Worse, now there are only 3 IMFs: Tom Cruise (leader/superman), Simon Pegg (emotive hacker), and Ving Rhames (sessile hacker). Sometimes Jeremy Renner hangs around to whinge. Ya came too light, Toombs.
WHO’S WHO
CHRISTOPHER MCQUARRIE directed Mission Impossible 5: Rogue Nation. He has worked with Tom Cruise on Jack Reacher, Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, Mission Impossible 6: Fallout, Mission Impossible 7, and Mission Impossible 8.
WRITERS: Bruce Geller created the television series, Drew Pearce and Academy Award-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie wrote the screenplay. McQuarrie also won a Razzie Award for worst screenplay for his 2017 The Mummy with Tom Cruise.
TOM CRUISE (Thomas Cruise Mapothere IV) again starred as Ethan Hunt. 52-year-old Cruise looked very tired and stiff in this film — also pretty puffy. He apparently holds his breath for 6 minutes (I tapped out at 2 and counting). He also hangs on the side of an airplane at about 170 mph, slides from the Vienna State Opera House clamped between a woman’s thighs, motorbikes through Casablanca, and hobnobs in London. He poses a few times but don’t wait for his emotions. Hopefully the plot moves so fast that you won’t notice the minimal acting.
SIMON PEGG (Simon John Beckingham) brought most of the energy, most of the emotive acting, and all the humor. Ricky Gervais turned down the role. You know him from the Cornetto Trilogy and so much more — he has appeared in Dr. Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek franchises. Keeps mini schnauzers.
REBECCA FERGUSON (Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström) plays Ilsa Faust, an English double agent/assassin who shared a thing with Tom Cruise. Her performance was terse but powerful, and she managed to have a caring relationship without making it into a love-at-first-sight, sappy movie romance. She is known for Drowning Ghost, The White Queen, and Mission Impossible — Fallout.
VING RHAMES (Irving Rameses Rhames) plays Luther Stickell. Julliard-trained Rhames is a passible actor who is given few lines and very little to do in this film. Too bad.
ALEC BALDWIN plays Alan Huntley, the ever-fuming CIA chief and cranky boy. Boy, that anger is really believable.
JEREMY RENNER plays William Brandt, the whinger. Seriously, all he did was naysay, criticize, and annoy the IMF team, but never offered a creative thought. What is his special IMF skill, anyway?
JOE KRAEMER supplied a lively score, which touched lightly on Lalo Schifrin’s original theme.
WOOPS:
OK. Characters call the USB flash drive a disk. In the water, Ethan’s O2-saturation level never drops below 70%; you cannot “pressurize” water (it doesn’t compress); computers use AC systems to cool, not giant waterworks; and, although metal isn’t allowed in the torus, the team could have easily built short-service plastic oxygen tanks or rebreathers. And why were they chasing Ilsa if they already had a copy of the flash drive?
WES’ FAMILY RATING: “OK FOR PG-13 KIDS:”
This PG-13 film has people getting hit and cut with knives. There is underwear and I heard there was some nudity, but it was so brief I missed it. A few boy scout words, including S, H, and D. No smoking.
CONSIDERATIONS:
Money voted this the best film ever. Mission Impossible — Rogue Nation made 683 million dollars, for a profit of 110 million. The vegemeter gives this movie a rating of 94%. How can you top that?
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Obviously, everyone but me loved this action film, so if you loved the other Mission movies, you’ll probably like this one, too. At least you’ll get a 131-minute roller coaster ride, and that’s something. However, the minimal acting kept me from caring much about any of the characters, although I disliked some more than others. Overall, it seemed like cold Cruise Stew to me — a rehash of what I had seen before.
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