Review - Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is a action spny film directed by Christopher McQuarrie and stars Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris and Alec Baldwin.

This film is the fifth in the Mission Impossible franchise, usually at the fifth film the franchise starts losing steam and the audience hopes they stop making these films but that couldn't be any further from the truth with Rogue Nation, it is arguably the best film in the series and is thrilling from start to finish.

In Rogue Nation, Ethan (Cruise) and his team take on their most impossible mission yet, eradicating the Syndicate - an international rogue organization as highly skilled as they are, committed to destroying the IMF. 


The story in the Mission Impossible films are all very familiar, the IMF gets shut down and Ethan Hunt has to take matters into his own hands, which is annoying, but its a way to get the story started so its understandable.
But the story isn't the most important part of the film, its all about the crazy stunts, action and the great group dynamic between Ethan and his team and they are all better than ever.

Tom Cruise hanging out of the airplane was the main marketing stunt for the film, its on the poster and in every trailer, luckily there are a lot more stunts in the film and the airplane stunt is right at the start of the film, so it doesn't feel like anything has been spoiled by the marketing like so many films now, there is a certain stunt in the film that'll take your breath away, literally and its all thanks to Tom Cruise and his willingness to film the stunts himself, which helps the audience care about Ethan Hunt even more because he is really in these situations and its not a stunt man doing everything.

The action in the film is incredible, the fistfights, car chases and shootouts all deliver, Christopher McQuarrie directed the action brilliantly, thankfully there was no shakey-cam and was filmed perfectly, there is a car chase in this film which is incredible and may be the best chase scene I've ever seen.

Rebecca Ferguson & Tom Cruise in Rogue Nation

Ethan's group in Ghost Protocol were great and thankfully the team is back here except for Paula Patton who has been replaced with new girl Rebecca Ferguson. Ferguson is great in the role, she isn't just a sex appeal character, she has a real arc and is a very well developed character, she is bad-ass for the most part but still shows her femininity, i hope she will be in more of the Impossible films. Ving Rhames has a much bigger role than in Ghost Protocol, thank God because he is one of the best things about this series, but the stand-out in this film is Simon Pegg's character, Benji, who was introduced in M:I 3, as a tech geek who has about 5 minutes of screen time in the whole film, in the last two films his role has grown immensely and is now Ethan's right hand man, he is the perfect character for this type of film because he is the comic relief but he is also a capable spy so he can do action aswell, making for some great scenes.  

Simon Pegg in Rogue Nation

A big problem with this series of films is the villain, the only standout villain in the first four film was Phillip Seymour Hoffman in M:I 3 who was great, a truly menacing villain, there is now two because Sean Harris as Soloman Lane was a really good bad guy, he was cold, calculating and unpredictable, one of my favourite parts of the film was Ethan thinking about all of Soloman's plan that he has planned out, which keep throwing Ethan's team for a loop, hopefully they will keep this standard of villain for the future of the series.

My only big problem with the film was that it felt a bit dragged out near the end, i thought it was about 10 minutes too long, when i got to the end fight scenes i was exhausted from the rest of the action that has happened in the rest of the film and my eyes were glazing over, but that's a rather small criticism. 

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation was a superb action blockbuster which is a 2 hour thrill ride, the cast is great, the action is incredible and the stunts will have you nervous for the characters but it drags a bit towards the end.

4.2/5
What did you think of Rogue Nation?
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