I like Tom Cruise. There, I said it. I freaking loved Edge of Tomorrow but really I’ve liked almost everything Cruise has been in basically since Rain Man. You know what you’ll get with him. A more or less straightforward story with great facial acting from your average “American Everyman”. If Tom Cruise is in a movie it’s almost guaranteed to be good to great. (Ok, let’s forget the atrocious Rock of Ages and a few others, but you know what I mean).
TL:DR Should You Watch It?
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is a good movie. A really solidly good movie. You want laughs? It has laughs. High speed chases? Oh, it has high speed chases. Huge explosions, close quarters combat, people flying through window panes, knives unexpectedly plunged into sternums, it has it all baby!
Look, bottom line, if you didn’t like the previous movies in this franchise then this movie isn’t going to change your mind. If you did, then you’re in luck, you’re going to enjoy the ride. Like I said, it’s a good movie.
Needs More Cowbell
If there’s one thing I didn’t like about the movie is that it starts off with a bang. From the beginning it hooks you in and you have this sense, if it starts like this, that you’re going to have this crazy action adventure throughout. Not the case. Ten minutes into it you start this steady decline from super awesome to pretty gosh darn good.
I mean, it’s Mission: Impossible. The hero will have near-death experiences. The hot girl will be a fighter who’s appealing to the eyes. The tech guy will be the comedic relief. The specialist will be a minority who speaks rarely. They’ll all be put in highly convoluted situations that somehow work out leading you to wonder if they are somehow caught up in the wake of the Improbability Drive in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I mean, it’s Mission: Impossible, right?
Still, I’d hope that given these givens that I’d be treated to ever increasing levels of intensity rising to such fevered pitch that I wonder how on earth our protagonist will manage to inevitably extricate himself from some final mind-blowing predicament. That didn’t happen here. The movie sort of just coasts to it’s ending without much fanfare. Or rather, not the fanfare I was hoping for.
Final Thoughts on Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
My absolute favourite part of this movie is that there is no dwelling on a love story. Sure, there are reasons for sexual tension, but there’s no shoe-horned romance. For my part, that would have seriously tanked this movie. Not because I’m against on-screen romance (Lord knows I watched every minute of Smallville) but because it would have brought nothing to this film in any way.
The villain was also very much a Moriarty-type guy. Very clever, cold and calculating. It gave the whole thing a delightful Holmesian feel. The amazing man meeting his match and having to rise to the occasion and all that jazz. Very satisfying.
In the end, I’d say that if you’re the type of person to like light-hearted romps through European streets with bullets whizzing by then you’re likely to feel your money was well spent. It was no Mission: Impossible 3 but whatever. At least we don’t get one every year.
Oh, and, unless you have some perfect meta-human memory, watch Ghost Protocol again before going to see this one. A refresher is worthwhile.
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