Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation
Now this is what a Summer Blockbuster Action movie should be! As the 5th installment in the Mission Impossible series, this one is by far the best. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, X-Men), the film is beautifully done in almost every way imaginable. Let’s break it down:
Script/Screenplay – The story is gripping, full of great plot twists, so well thought out and executed that I found myself on the edge of my seat for almost the whole 2 hours and 12 minutes of the film. In all honesty, I wasn’t ready for it to be over. A homerun by McQuarrie.
Acting – Tom Cruise once again plays Ethan Hunt and plays the role to perfection. In fact, it’s one of my favorite performances by him and that’s saying quite a lot. With just the right combination of serious dialogue mixed in with subtle, yet effective humor, the whole cast brings their “A” game to the party. Some standouts are Rebecca Ferguson (as the femme fatale Ilsa Faust and my new crush), Jeremy Renner as agent Brandt, Alec Baldwin as the smarmy CIA director Alan Hunley, and Sean Harris as the evil villain Solomon Lane. Simply a pleasure to see all of these parts come together to produce a quality experience.
Cinematography – Simply unreal. The way some of the action sequences and overall landscapes were shot will simply take your breath away. Whether it was at the Vienna Opera house, the car and motorcycle chase scenes in Morocco, the film’s opening A400 plane sequence, or even the underwater scene, the wide vastness of angles and creativity in filming this movie was simply spectacular. (Not to mention how heart stopping the actual action scenes are.)
Soundtrack – As a fan of the Puccini opera Turandot and in particular the famous Aria Nessun Dorma, I was blown away at how wonderfully composer Joe Kraemer integrated the score into the action sequence from Vienna. He also seamlessly dropped in several portions from the Aria throughout the film and it was a pleasant surprise.
Simply put, this is one of my favorite movies of the summer and quite possibly the year so far-and that’s pretty rare considering it’s an action film. It really is what every other action movie should aspire to.
Well worth your money to go see and we give it a solid 9 out of 10 stars.
