Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation directed by Christopher McQuarrie, starring Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ving Rhames.

This is easily the best Mission Impossible movie in the franchise.  It shouldn't be because normally as movies get further in the sequel syndrome they become worse and worse until they become a shadow of their original self.  Rogue Nation completely breaks that mold as it presents one of the most action packed and stunt ridden movies in the series.


Christopher McQaurrie has become a better action director than I would have given him credit for and a person who has channeled the Tom Cruise persona to perfection with this movie and Jack Reacher.  He never let the action scenes or story line get to ahead of him in this movie and kept the focus of everything on characters.  The characters really blend well into the action scenes without become over shadowed by them.  This is the one movie that has a well rounded ensemble cast and where Cruise isn't the focal point of the movie but the other characters around him completely help the story line along.  Rebecca Furguson does a marvelous job opposite Cruise.  She is essentially the female version of Cruise's character in this movie, the movie doesn't shy away from this fact, nor does it treat her as a women or exploit her sexually or romantically.  She is in all ways equal to every male in this movie who have had the same type of training.  This in alone of itself a brave thing this movie does as Hollywood still hasn't figured out how to write women roles without the cliches attached to them. 

The pacing of this movie is manic and insane but never once does it seem to strain from the next action scene to the next action scene, which in and of itself is simply amazing.  Easily one of the better action movies I've seen. Michael Bay could take some notes from this on building characters around the action scenes versus the other way around.   At times this movie plays out like a musical only instead of random musical numbers the audience is treated to actions scenes and of those there are plenty but it never seems bogged down by those scenes. 

Stand out scene is clearly the opera house scene.  One of the best action scenes to be filmed and it completely lives up the hype I've read about it.  Hitchcock would have been proud of it as it has touches of him throughout but doesn't have the same type of feel as watching Tarantino ripe off people shot for shot.  This one feels wholly original but with touches of Hitchcock.