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Thursday, July 30, 2015

MOVIE REVIEW Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation
 Still Indestructible, Even At 5,000 Feet

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, hanging on for dear life at 5,000 feet in "Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation".  Paramount  
       
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Thursday, July 30, 2015

 The indestructible, can-do action man Tom Cruise keeps pushing action limits, and Christopher McQuarrie’s slick, enjoyable high-wire drama “Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation” aptly shows off the appetites of its indefatigable star.  “Rogue Nation” is largely one near-death action payoff scene after another -- pure adrenaline and riveting spectacle.  Lines may have faintly emerged on Ethan Hunt’s battle-tested demeanor but he keeps finding ways to defy death while aging the audience by putting it through the ringer with tense, hair-raising stunts.  Hunt has blown way past nine lives; he’s already busy endangering his nineteenth. 

The “Mission: Impossible” film series, more than any other film in Mr. Cruise’s four-plus decades-long career, is closest to who the polite energetic movie star really is.  Mr. Cruise is relentless, fearless and does his own stunts, whether hanging off mountains in New Mexico, running down the Burj Khalifa or hanging onto an Airbus A400M at 5000 feet.  In between he smiles or is intense.  Sashaying in underwear?  Piece of cake.  Singing Def Leppard?  Check.  Lip-synching?  No problem. 

“Rogue Nation” is an upgrade from its immediate predecessor, with Mr. McQuarrie’s more-tightly written story and dialogue involving the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) and its impending closure that the CIA chief (Alec Baldwin) gnashes his teeth in support of.  The film’s plot revolves around The Syndicate, maintained by rogue elements of British intelligence in the personage of a Saturday Night Live Sprockets reject (Sean Harris), whose facial percolations look like a rebellion or resistance against Botox.

The IMF wants desperately to erase those who will challenge it, and the attempted erasure of an androgynous figure seems a bit disconcerting, and for some reason I read it as an attack on effeminate men.  The film’s principal villain looks like a man who as a boy who never got the toys he wanted for Christmas and is now taking that frustration out on the planet.  Sometimes in this "Mission" the camera lies and all the time its people do.

For all its action gymnastics, humor and sexiness, “Rogue Nation” is something of a marvelous mindfuck.  Head games swirl, throwing characters (and audiences) for a loop.  Reverse psychology is flaunted and the psy-ops of IMF reverberates among some of the film's players.  Ethan Hunt is “a man without a country”, one character intones — and why would he need a country?  Based on the stunts in “Rogue Nation” no country appears big enough for Hunt’s action passport let alone his shenanigans.  Throughout the now five “Mission” films, Mr. Cruise’s ruthless Hunt has been cast as the center of the universe, a one-man wrecking crew without a home. 

Speaking of wrecking crews, Mr. Cruise is kept on his toes by Rebecca Ferguson, who as British spy agent Ilsa Faust bedevils, outmuscles and outthinks Hunt.  Ms. Ferguson is the only other cast member who doesn’t stumble around in these ornate and rugged 007-like proceedings, including when she “Dr. No” exits a swimming pool in Casablanca.  As with any Bond film there’s innuendo aplenty in a lipstick container she and Simon Pegg fiddle with on separate occasions. 

Ms. Ferguson’s Faust is sly, efficient and exacting, cast as a dangerous “seductress” caught between worlds that betray her yet is always a step ahead of those worlds, giving as good as she gets.  Faust is caught in a “To Catch A Thief” routine that’s cheeky — and without fireworks. 

Meanwhile, Ethan’s cohorts are sycophantic cheerleaders for Hunt’s derring-do.  “Because only Ethan can!” is the monotone retort of Messrs Renner and Rhames, who stumble around in a junky car in hot pursuit of faceless Syndicate members during one of several dynamic action sequences.  It’s the tautological Ethan-can-because-Ethan-does routine but the film's opening minutes in Minsk make any sales pitches for Ethan redundant.

The refrains of Ethan’s IMF colleagues work as parallel arguments for the continuing celluloid action endeavors of Mr. Cruise, especially in this “Mission” franchise, which is generally reliable if uneven.  In “Rogue Nation” Mr. Cruise still leaps, dives and drowns in single bounds and breaths, and he looks 35.  Transpose those numbers and you have Mr. Cruise’s age.  His action age is a close second.

Like the rest of us Mr. Cruise is getting older, and “Mission” is still viable as an action film franchise 20 years later.  “Terminator” films creak disastrously along after 31 years, so why should Teflon Tom stop as a “Mission” man?  But there is age, and age is revealed for Tom Cruise in the following story.  While it was John Woo who trembled as Mr. Cruise dangled on the edge of his life in New Mexico in “M:i:2” in 1999 it’s now Mr. Cruise who admits he was “scared shitless” when doing his plane stunt.  Which he did eight takes of. 

Mr. Cruise flew fighter jets in “Top Gun” in 1986.  He’s now thrown down the gauntlet for his participation in any would-be “Top Gun” sequel: no CGI.  It’s a rebellion against the lazy Hollywood filmmaking EFX factory that has blighted the flavor of big-budget movies.  The actor is among those taking a last stand against artificial process or decrying today’s Tinseltown (Dustin Hoffman).  “Rogue Nation” further confirms Mr. Cruise’s status as the Evel Knievel of the movies.  Errol Flynn swashbuckled with flair decades back but now Mr. Cruise powers through stunts as if on a timed obstacle course.  He, and the movies of course, make it look oh-so easy.  In a make-believe movie era that is increasingly more contained, Mr. Cruise's approach to action stunts remains authentic.

I loved the colorful and smooth “Rogue Nation” for its all-around fun, entertainment and hijinks.  But if you look closely you’ll see mash-ups of stunts and scenes from each of the four preceding “Mission” films.  It’s clear -- and clearly forgiven.  Ethan Hunt has dodged missiles (“M:i:III”) so why not give him a refresher course of “Mission” memory lane as a breather for this film?  One thing's for sure: Tom Cruise, who produced this latest film, will be on his action bike again soon.  Or dancing on the head of a pin for his next “Mission”.  Wasn’t that pin Burj Khalifa?

Also with: Simon McBurney, Tom Hollister.

“Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation” is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.  The film’s running time is two hours and nine minutes.  The film is also in IMAX theaters starting Friday.
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