Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation
**This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
In Christopher McQuarrie, Tom Cruise has found the sort of long-term collaborator in this series every franchise hopes for- someone willing to take chances, but also adheres to the form and structure of the series. In “Rogue Nation,” McQuarrie brings the series to a key moment, its first acknowledgement of the original Bruce Gellar series since the 1996 film, and a genuine long-term female character that matches Ethan Hunt beat-for-beat in thrill-seeking, and spy craft.
“Rogue Nation” is the only “Mission: Impossible” film I have not seen in theatres- I had just gotten engaged that month, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time. So, in a way, that might be why the opening of this film, where Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has to enter a giant cargo plane while it’s airborne- and he doesn’t have the proper equipment- has never really excited me like it should. I find that some of my favorite sequences in this franchise are less about extraordinary feats by Cruise and the ways in which action and story combine to build into a remarkable crescendo. By the time my favorite sequence happens in this movie, Ethan has already been on the trail of The Syndicate, a terrorist organization sowing chaos through various tragedies around the world. The catch is, nobody believes they exist. Now, a new CIA director (Alec Baldwin) is trying to shut down IMF, and Cruise has to go it alone, or at least, with some covert help by Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames) as well as a mysterious British woman (Rebecca Ferguson) whom assists him when he is captured by the Syndicate at the start of the film.
It will always blow me away how Cruise gets companies to insure this franchise, given the stunts he does, but the fact is, this might be the most reliably consistent action franchise Hollywood has ever released in terms of quality control (and box-office). Sure, there are biggest box-office totals, but even when the quality suffers like it does in “M:i-2” and “Mission: Impossible 3,” these films usually have at least one great element that makes them connect with audiences. Here, the franchise is finally introducing IMF’s rival organization from the Bruce Gellar TV series, and it more than lives up to that expectation with how McQuarrie and Drew Pearce define them. The Syndicate is a boogie man that only Hunt can see, so the deeper he gets into that battle, the more fraught his situation gets. And the greater the risk it is for his team to help him. The mission practically demands that he work with Ilsa Faust (Ferguson’s character), who seems like an enemy, but might have her own agenda when it comes to bringing down The Syndicate and its leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).
The sequence that forever earns this film my respect is the opera house in Austria. Ethan thinks he has uncovered The Syndicate, and brings Benji into the field with him. There might be an assassination afoot, however, and as Ethan tries to foil that, Ilsa prepares herself in one of the sets. Of course, the way McQuarrie and cinematographer Robert Elswit shoot her is breathtaking- and the sexual attraction towards her is show-stopping- but we start to understand more about her, and why she seems to gravitate towards Ethan. It sets up everything that transpires between the characters as the series progresses, and is the female lead this series has needed opposite Ethan.
For all the extravagant stunts the film traffics in, “Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation” succeeds because it feels like the first franchise since the original that is focused almost entirely on spy games more than action. That, when I finally did see it, was a sight for sore eyes, even though I enjoyed what we’d gotten up to that point in the series.
