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Mission: Impossible —
Rogue Nation (12A)
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
3/5
TOM CRUISE’S mission, which he seems to have chosen to accept, is to continue giving cinema audiences the most thrilling ride possible by performing all his own hair-raising stunts.
So how could he possibly top scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, in 2011’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol?
As the trailer for the fifth instalment in the franchise gives away, he does so by holding on to the outside of an Airbus A-400 military transport plane as it takes off — a stunt he performed eight times.
The fact it is Cruise as Ethan Hunt clinging by his fingertips to the aircraft as he attempts to break into it while it taxis and then soars into the air makes it all the more electrifying.
It is a truly impressive opening which is a hard act to follow, although Cruise is later required to breathe underwater for two minutes — though he trained himself to do it for six minutes — and is involved in a nail-biting high-speed motorbike and car chase in Casablanca.
At 53, he shows he is still a bona fide all-encompassing action hero.
Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, who worked with Cruise on Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow, delivers a solid non-stop action-fuelled Mission Impossible number five which takes you from Belarus to London to Morocco and the Vienna Opera House among numerous glamorous locales.
The film is spoilt only by its convoluted plot, which involves Hunt and his trusted team of Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames joining forces again to defeat an international rogue organisation called The Syndicate, devised by the British intelligence services to destroy unsavoury groups clandestinely.
A cat-and-mouse game ensues between Hunt and The Syndicate’s nefarious leader Solomon Lane, given a deliciously creepy performance by Sean Harris.
Hunt meets his match in Lane and the mysterious and alluring Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a spy who allies herself to Hunt but it isn’t clear whether she is friend or foe. Ferguson is exquisitely elegant and mesmerising as the feline Ilsa who is Hunt’s equal in every way — a welcome change from previous female characters in the franchise — and who is in danger of eclipsing Cruise in his own film with her magnetic portrayal.
It is good to see Pegg, who provides most of the light relief, being given more to do here while Alec Baldwin is in great pompous form as CIA Director Alan Hunley who outlaws the IMF — Hunt and his cronies — and is on the latter’s trail.
The final showdown in London has been described by Cruise as a love letter to the capital.
With all the key Mission Impossible ingredients, including its fearless leading man pulling out all the action stops, it’s all great fun.
But somehow it lacks the fresh vitality, the ingenuity and the wow factor of Ghost Protocol.