Ruben Rosario

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the fifth installment in the long running spy fraternity franchise, thumbs its nose at conventional wisdom that states summer action movies ought to be high on spectacle and low on brains. It's the thrill seeking gambler of the current crop of studio releases, and it wastes no time in letting you know it intends to set the stakes sky high. Literally.

 

You're likely already familiar with that bracing, "oh hell naw" shot of Tom Cruise hanging on for dear life on the side of a cargo plane as it takes off. The trailers made it seem like a climactic money shot, but the moment, in which secret agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) attempts to make sure the aircraft doesn't leave a Belarus airstrip with some stolen chemical weapons, is over and done with in Rogue Nation's opening minutes. (Yes, that's the Top Gun star latched onto an actual plane. Yes, the 53 year old is in fantastic physical shape. No, there's no indication he plans to stop showing off how much of a brazen badass he is.)

Rogue Nation whets our appetite, and leaves us wondering how on Earth could they possibly top that sequence. Is the film able to maintain this demanding, can you top this momentum? Yes and no.

The film's visceral opening sequence is merely a springboard for this tight cat and mouse yarn. Hunt, you see, has gone off the grid looking for the Syndicate, an underground international network considered by many of his government peers to be an urban legend. Not so, as Hunt finds out the hard way at a London record shop where he thought he would be receiving instructions from his colleagues at the Impossible Mission Force, but is instead captured. Again, the film is toying with the audience expectations, throwing us the kind of curveball that usually doesn't take place until much later in a more conventional narrative.

While in captivity shirtless, of course Hunt meets a mystery woman who seems to be working for the baddies but then surprises him by helping secure his escape. "You should go before it gets ugly," he tells her in what could be construed as misplaced chivalry. Moments later, it's clear Ilsa Faust (Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson) is no damsel in distress, as she takes on some brawny baddies while barely breaking a sweat. Ferguson, who looks like the love child of Catherine Zeta Jones and the young Charlotte Rampling, commands the screen so effortlessly you start wishing the movie was more about her character.

And, to a certain extent, Rogue Nation is about Ilsa. Is she trustworthy? Why did she help Hunt escape what was certain to be a gruesome fate? The storyline lends itself to some stimulating possibilities, enough content, one would think, to stitch together the series of setpieces this Mission executes with commendable skill. A basic cherchez la femme plot, however, just won't do for a franchise based on Bruce Geller's TV series that prides itself in layering plot twist atop plot twist. And so, Hunt's getaway is merely the tip of the iceberg, as he and his besties Luther (Ving Rhames), William (Jeremy Renner) and tech whiz/comic relief Benji (Simon Pegg) try to thwart the Syndicate and outmaneuver CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin), who's doing his damnedest to disband the IMF. (The way this byzantine plot unfolds is a lot more convoluted than it sounds.)

That ambitious approach has made for wildly uneven results since the first Mission: Impossible was released in 1996, and even though fans all have their favorite in the series, the trait they share is how different each entry is from the other. Here's where Rogue Nation goes somewhat rogue. Unlike Brian DePalma (#1), John Woo (#2), J.J. Abrams (#3) and Brad Bird (#4, still my favorite), Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, who directed the latest chapter, has several prior collaborations with Cruise under his belt: He co wrote the World War II thriller Valkyrie, co wrote the sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, and wrote and directed the private eye thriller Jack Reacher. Consequently, Rogue Nation feels less like the work of a director molding Cruise into their own action hero creation than an ongoing collaboration between star and filmmaker. From an aesthetic standpoint, that familiarity makes for a less exciting movie than it could have been if it had been made by someone who'd never worked with Cruise before.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's clear McQuarrie wants to earn his stripes calling the shots in a Mission: Impossible movie. For instance, a dazzling sequence during a Vienna Opera House performance of Turandot, in which Hunt and Benji search for Syndicate mastermind Solomon Lane (Prometheus' Sean Harris), only to stumble into an assassination attempt, samples the climax from The Man Who Knew Too Much to satisfying effect. A noir drenched mano-a-mano in the streets of London later in the film tips the hat to The Third Man with similar panache. McQuarrie is so heavily invested in his dense, elaborate narrative that keeping up with it becomes more work than leisure for the viewer. It's evident he wants to lend the story equal relevance to the setpieces, but the effort winds up working against our enjoyment of the film. In short, he's taking himself too seriously, and in doing so, he's making our experience less fun for us.

Let's be honest, when we think of the Mission: Impossible movies, what's most memorable about them are the spectacular missions, not the double and triple crosses. Suspension of disbelief is, naturally, a must here, and halfway through Rogue Nation, there's a doozy of a moment that asks us to believe someone would be able to survive more than three minutes underwater while carrying out a difficult task. A breezier caper would have been able to pull off the scene's sheer implausibility with a wink and a smile, but Rogue Nation is so stern faced that you wind up fighting the temptation to shout, "Oh, come on!"

If the film's plot hero puts reputation on the line trying to prove the existence of an evil entity sounds familiar, that's because it bears a striking resemblance to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with Voldemort standing in for the Syndicate. That film adaptation made sure to insert moments of levity so its more somber elements were easier to digest. Rogue Nation, on the other hand, is so intent in ensuring its complex story holds together that it sometimes forgets its peddling escapism. Even the moments in which the camera gazes adoringly at Ferguson's physique have a perfunctory, insert sexy shot here nature. McQuarrie has made a polished contribution to this enduring series. He just needs to remember to mix in some pleasure with business next time around.