Film Review: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

‪ 

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Rated M (action violence). 132 minutes. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

When an action-packed adventure story about undercover secret agents racing against time to save the world works well, the result is often irresistible. When it works as well as it does in this fifth film in the Mission: Impossible series, it’s also a fantastically entertaining night at the movies.

Even though Rogue Nation is just shy of two and a half hours long, McQuarrie’s involving screenplay, his incisive direction and Eddie Hamilton’s (Kingsman: The Secret Service) superb editing, ensure that almost every perfectly-paced sequence delivers high stakes suspense and thrills in equal measure.

Following on from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), Impossible Missions Force (IMF) special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) believes he can prove the existence of the Syndicate, a top secret terrorist organisation that is wreaking havoc around the globe.

With his trusted colleagues Benji (Simon Pegg), William (Jeremy Renner) and Luther (Ving Rhames) joining him in the hunt for the Syndicate’s leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), Hunt also finds himself in the company of mysterious special agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), whose task is to either help Hunt succeed, or kill him before he can.

The role of Ethan Hunt fits Cruise like a glove. He first played the ingenious, never-say-die Hunt in Mission: Impossible (1996), and any doubts about whether he is still up for it are instantly dispelled in Rogue Nation’s astonishing opening sequence.

Pegg’s Benji gets all of the comedy, which he delivers with his now trademark, engaging goofiness, but it is the little-known Ferguson whose performance as the elusive Ilsa is fabulous. The script ensures that you never really know whether the formidable Ilsa can be trusted, and the captivating Ferguson will keep you guessing through each of the film’s entirely rewarding plot twists and U-turns.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.