Arrive late to “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” and you will miss the much-heralded sequence where Tom Cruise is strapped to the side of a military transport plane as it takes off and he holds on for dear life.
It’s insane and insanely impressive (he did it eight times, all told) and just the first in a series of stunts in which Mr. Cruise rappels down the side of a European landmark in a straight shot, holds his breath underwater for minutes on end and steers a speeding car and motorcycle in a way that qualifies him for the next “Fast and Furious” movie.
The fifth big-screen “M:I” picks up the story of the Impossible Missions Force as Ethan Hunt (Mr. Cruise) prevents a shipment of nerve gas from falling into the wrong hands. He also confirms the existence of a shadow organization of malevolent spies known as the Syndicate.
It not only knows who Ethan is but also traps and tortures him, shackling him, turning him into a human punching bag and introducing him to the “Bone Doctor,” who doesn’t mend bones but cracks and crunches them.
Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg.
Rating: PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.
As all this is happening, the imperious CIA director (Alec Baldwin) tells a Senate committee that the force should be dissolved and its operations absorbed by the CIA. The IMF team — played by Mr. Cruise along with returning cast mates Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames — will not go quietly or at all if they have anything to do with it.
With a fearless female spy (Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson, a fresh and welcome addition) who might be friend or foe, the crew slips around the world from one photogenic location to another. Each city, however, brings an exotic backdrop, a threat to world stability and security, and a mission so preposterous it can barely be called impossible.
“M:I — Rogue Nation” reunites Mr. Cruise with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie from 2012’s “Jack Reacher,” filmed in Pittsburgh. They make a dynamite team, with Mr. McQuarrie (an Oscar winner for “The Usual Suspects” screenplay) unafraid to go big, bigger and biggest or go home, and a leading man who seems as though he will try and train for anything.
Foolhardy or fantastic?
Either way, the moviegoers know that’s really the 53-year-old actor doing his own stunts and playing well off Mr. Pegg’s techie turned field agent who grouses, “Join the IMF. See the world — on a monitor.” He escapes the computer screen only to land at the ground zero of peril.
Just who or what has gone rogue? The story provides no shortage of candidates and motivations and almost wall-to-wall taut action worthy of its Imax option along with TV touchstones of a message that will self-destruct and disguises impossible to discern from the real thing. It also has more pops of humor than in previous installments.
As with those “Fast and Furious” movies, this franchise has found new life, courtesy of the shrewd addition of Mr. McQuarrie to a changing roster of directors, a rotating crop of women who increasingly are more than eye candy and a group of fast friends who worry that some day, Ethan will take things too far.
He has. He will. And the series is all the more entertaining for it.
Movie editor Barbara Vancheri: bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632. Read her blog at www.post-gazette.com/madaboutmovies.
First Published: July 31, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
