A month after this film’s release, and pretty much everyone who was going to see it already has, but I can’t shake the feeling all the positive reactions it’s been getting aren’t entirely earned. After all, I saw it a month ago and haven’t felt compelled to really write a review…
What Works: Rebecca Ferguson is a discovery as the “girl” in this installment, capable of looking both sexy, appealing, steely, and dangerous in the same moment. You almost wish she’d been given more to do. Ditto with Alec Baldwin, who juices a thankless role with flashes of sly wit or at the very least self-awareness, something the film is a little light on. Plus, there’s a motorcycle chase set piece that is truly dazzling.
What Doesn’t: “Ghost Protocol” (the franchise’s 4th installment) was infinitely better. In that, you had a more compelling female lead (Paula Patton), Jeremy Renner’s secondary spy was given something to do, and the action set pieces felt awe inspiring (like that giddily-filmed Dubai tower climb that still creates suspense even after seeing it 10 times that then morphed into a sandstorm car chase turned shootout). In that film, Brad Bird knew how to craft scenes so that they really, truly worked, but in this one Christopher McQuarrie entertains but doesn’t really captivate. Only a couple hours after seeing “Rogue Nation,” I had a hard time remembering it, and it’s arguably the least memorable movie in the entire franchise with a bland villain, a so-so plot, and action sequences that are just okay and a little numbing after a while.
What I Would Have Done Differently: All the films have had a distinct style up to this point or at least one element that really and truly separated them: the cerebral suspense of the first one (still my favorite), the gonzo action of the second one, the heavy hitter villain of the third one (R.I.P. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, still the only truly great villain in the franchise’s history even if the movie around him wasn’t the best in the series), and the well crafted pop of the 4th one. The 5th installment is the only one that feels slightly generic and not truly a film that can stand on its own.
I’m not saying the Mission Impossible films have to strive for the creative highs and grittier realism of the recent Bond or Bourne movies (although what would be so awful if they did?), but something has begun to feel a little repetitive about them.