Though I’d watched the TV show when I was in high school, I’d never seen one of the movies. So after seeing the latest, Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, I decided to watch Brian De Palma’s original 1996 film in the movie series. While De Palma’s film is better in almost every regard — starting with being 21 minutes shorter — the two films both have their plusses and minuses. The original is slick and fast-paced, but there are few aspects that suggest it’s a De Palma film. It has the advantage of not feeling it has to prove what a badass stuntman Cruise is, but the disadvantage of giving us Cruise — with a bad ’90s haircut — at his smirkiest.
The new film — which follows the template of the original — benefits from having a less obnoxious Cruise. But it has a downside in that the 53-year-old Cruise insists on trying to convince he’s still as young and trim and fit as he was at 34. A very carefully posed and lit shirtless Cruise scene is only mildly risible, but his endless parading of derring-do stuntwork and leaping about just becomes funny. It falls somewhere between Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couches about how gaga he was over Katie Holmes (well…) and watching Jack Palance doing one-arm push-ups on the Oscars. When he was 34, he was much less of a show-off — perhaps because he wasn’t trying to prove anything.
Otherwise, Rogue Nation is a reasonably solid — but way too long — action/spy picture. The plot is basically an elaborate variation on the original film, but instead of just Ethan Hunt (Cruise) being disgraced and on the run, the whole I.M.F. (Impossible Mission Force) is under fire by C.I.A. bigwig Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin), who is determined to shut them down. It could be said to be mostly Hunt’s fault, since much of the crisis hinges on his insistence on bringing down a secret terrorist force called The Syndicate — sort of his personal Moriarity — that no one else thinks exists. Apart from the presence of an agent, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who may or not be a British agent pretending to work for Syndicate head Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) — and who functions as a remarkably chaste romantic interest for Hunt — that’s about it for the plot. It’s fine for a base on which to build the expected set-pieces.
One of the set-pieces — an assassination at a performance of Turandot — is just plain brilliant. (Though whoever decided “Nessun Dorma” would make a great love theme for Hunt and Ilsa probably should have thought twice.) Others are mixed bags, and nearly all of them go on too long. A motorcycle chase that mostly serves to show off Cruise’s skill on a motorcycle could have been cut altogether. (At least the hokey CGI explosion might have been improved.) Overall, they’ll probably go over pretty well with fans of the series.
The film does a good job of giving all the major supporting players — Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames — something worthwhile to do. For that matter, Sean Harris’ Solomon Lane is a pretty decent villain of the kind that would need to have an IQ of about 500, but can be undone by his very intellectual superiority. And Cruise and Ferguson make a nicely relaxed pair (perhaps because it only teases at a romance). All in all, it’s an OK picture that pulls off the not inconsiderable feat of being clever and largely brainless at the same time. Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.
“But it has a downside in that the 53-year-old Cruise insists on trying to convince he’s still as young and trim and fit as he was at 34. ”
Funny as I grow older, I do way less stunts and I never take off my shirt.
Come to think of it, I never much did.
Parent! Positive spoiler alert!
Not mentioned in the review is the fact that there was no:
-cursing (used by many talentless script writers these days to fill in dialog holes)
-smoking (used in many movies today to prove the bad guys are tough)
-drinking (see above).
Why the perpetual bashing of actor age in the reviews? Jimmy Stewart was too old…John Wayne was too old…no wonder I can’t find a job in the McCrory administration with newly retired DHHS Dr. Aldonna Wos hiring whippersnappers who campaigned for Pat and now make $85,000 a year…
Well done , Producer Tom Cruise!
Huzzah for clean-living movies, masked man!
“Perpetual bashing of actor age” amounts to two reviews. Check my review of Sabrina. Get realistic about what I’ve said. I said that 50+ year-old Stewart was hard to buy as this green, just-out-of-school lawyer. And here I’ve said that 53-year-old Cruise trying prove he’s still as he was when he was 34 gets silly. What this has to do with getting a job with that snake-oil salesman passing for governor, I do not know.
You’re way too hard on Cruise!! So what if he is 53-he makes the character believable and the movie is damn good!
Cruise looks 10 years younger and still in his prime – why don’t you go after Scharwzenegger or Stallone who are really past their prime!!
Why can’t you critics just give Tom his due-he makes great flicks and still the top box office draw – so there!
It’s a review. That inherently means it’s an opinion. Whether or not you agree with it is also an opinion. (And have gone after Stallone and Der Arnold before.)
I don’t think Cruise has had a “great flick” since the third Mission:Impossible movie…and don’t think he’s given a great performance since Magnolia.
The movie is a lot of fun, almost as fun as Fury Road and the 100 Year Old Man. There were only a couple of times I could not swallow the pill they were giving me ( His skin would have been ripped off from that bike wreck as well as some bones broken) but the rest of it is really good so I was able to go with it. I am glad you watched the original. It is still the best in the series. What did you think of what they did with the former hero of the tv show? If you thought Rogue Nation was a vanity plate of stunts for Cruise, its nothing compared to the worst movie of the bunch, part Deux.