- Location: Regal Lakewood 15
- If you've ever seen even a few episodes, you may have noticed that the old Mission: Impossible TV show followed a set routine. Play the self-destructing message, assemble the team, run the con and/or heist, and leave the badguy so confused that they'd never piece together what happened until it was too late. This sequence or something very much like it occurred every single week. Strange then, that only the fifth entry in the film series, Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, already feels stale. The movie isn't terrible by any stretch, but shouldn't a big-budget summer blockbuster film be more impressive than the average episode of a 50-year-old TV show?
- But lest I give the wrong impression, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation doesn't recycle material exclusively from its own film and TV ancestors. To cite examples, its car chase in Vienna and a London train station pursuit seem like they could have been pilfered from the Jason Bourne movies. The underwater safecracking, while memorable enough, would have been truly revolutionary had Gravity not performed similar tricks in space. An opera assassination attempt may remind the audience of The Man Who Knew Too Much. And don't tell James Bond about this film's villain with a high-pitched voice who runs a shadowy terrorist organization trying to topple world order.
- That villain, played by Sean Harris, is the most welcome new addition to the cast, with the possible exception of the always entertaining Alec Baldwin as a grouchy CIA director. Also new are Rebecca Ferguson as a disavowed secret agent and Jens Hultén as a vicious thug. The rest of the cast (Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) has run similar missions before. Incidentally, this film doesn't incorporate nearly enough of that cohesive teamwork that made the old TV show so much fun. Whereas 2011's surprisingly entertaining Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, really did use all its team members well, this one shifts everyone besides Cruise and Ferguson to the margins. I realize that I've reached the end of this review without discussing the plot, but if you've seen any of the other Mission: Impossible movies, you'll know that doesn't matter. Tom Cruise crashes through a bunch of windows and, yes, even hangs on the outside of a plane, but I find myself wishing that I cared more.
