Fifth Mission accomplished: Movie reviews

Cruise is as straight-laced and humourless as ever in the latest Mission Impossible film

Cruise is as straight-laced and humourless as ever in the latest Mission Impossible film

YOUR MISSION, should you choose to accept it, is to make a fifth film in a so-so franchise with a movie star, Tom Cruise, with whom the public are fast falling out of love.

 

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (12A, 131mins) 

Director: Christopher McQuarrie 

Stars: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin 

Do you really fancy taking on the dinosaurs and superheroes of the summer box office? Well, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) did and I for one am glad, as is my 10-year-old son Charlie who had a blast at his first exposure to Ethan Hunt, the indestructible super-spy, in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. 

 

Hunt’s no James Bond, of course, and the movie is no Skyfall according to my discerning young critic, nor is Hunt as intriguing or deadly as Jason Bourne. 

In fact, he’s always struck me as rather straight-laced and humourless. He is cool, yes, in a Tom Cruise wearing shades and performing daredevil stunts kind of way, but never edgy or particularly sexy. McQuarrie has the measure of his man, however, playing to all those Cruise strengths (watch him cling to the side of a plane in mid-air! 

Ride a motorbike at breakneck speed!) while toning down Hunt’s robotic air of invulnerability with a plot that sees him cast adrift from everybody, including his own teammates at the IMF, the deep-cover agency that operates beyond the reach of the CIA. 

Wisely, McQuarrie doesn’t force in a romance. Cruise seems to have given up on big screen love, which is probably a good thing given his troubled and peculiar real-life relationships; who would buy him as a romantic lead now? 

That said, there is a strong female character in the picture, Ilsa Faust, played by Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson, with whom Hunt collaborates but whose loyalties are never entirely certain – is she on the side of Hunt, British intelligence or the villain who employs her, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), a rogue agent-turned-terrorist? 

 

REESE WITHERSPOON plays the ditzy blonde again in Hot Pursuit

 She is elegant and mysterious but real, rather than a super-babe or action heroine like those played by Scarlett Johansson or Angelina Jolie. 

Faust is a classy dame of the old school; if smoking were still permitted in the movies she’d be wafting smoke rings around Tom Cruise.

She and Hunt enjoy some light flirtation, just enough to indicate that Hunt has urges in that direction and isn’t purely in love with himself or men, but it doesn’t lead anywhere, in part because there is simply no time (Hunt seems to be a whisker from death for most of the film) and more significantly because the main relationship is between Hunt and Benji, his nerdy, techno-whiz sidekick played by Simon Pegg. 

The plot is a classic “who to trust?” spy thriller in which Hunt finds himself out on his ear after the IMF is disbanded by a CIA chief infuriated by their rogue ways (Alec Baldwin at his blustering best).

Hunt can’t trust the US government or his former teammates William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) nor Faust who mysteriously saves his life despite working for the bad guy. Enter Benji, as loyal and eager as a puppy, who teams up with Hunt in Vienna to prevent the assassination of the Austrian Chancellor. 

Cue a lengthy and tense set-piece at the Vienna State Opera House, executed with a panache that Alfred Hitchcock might admire. 

It is one of several action set-pieces that rely on the careful building of tension rather than explosive pyrotechnics and which benefit considerably from Cruise doing his own stunt work; in this age of overdone special effects it adds a notable thrill when the action is done for real. 

Another stand-out sequence sees Hunt free-dive underwater for three minutes to infiltrate a deep water facility in Morocco, paralleled with a break-in above ground by Benji. 

It is involving mainly because we care not so much about Hunt but Benji whose fate hangs on Hunt’s efforts underwater. Benji, in fact, is the picture’s secret weapon. Hunt may be a bit of a robot but Benji humanises both him and the story while bringing some droll humour and banter. Pegg is a perfect foil for Cruise, although given the bags under his eyes I do worry he’s not getting enough sleep. 

 

Perhaps he wasn’t sure if he’d survive the story as his fate hangs in the balance during an exciting London-set climax, one that relies on clever plotting rather than explosive set-pieces.

The film is too long and I was never certain what the villain’s ultimate goal was as he seems to be a terrorist without any ideological agenda, but this is good summer fun and probably the best in the series. 

HOT PURSUIT  (12A, 87mins) 

Director: Anne Fletcher

Stars: Reese Witherspoon, Sofi a Vergara 

REESE WITHERSPOON plays the ditzy blonde again in Hot Pursuit but the fi lm isn’t nearly as enjoyable as Legally Blonde, and this time the character she plays does a disservice to blondes. 

Directed by Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) the picture is a buddy comedy in which Witherspoon’s inept cop has to escort a screeching former Mexican beauty queen, Daniella (Sofi a Vergara), cross-country in order to testify against a drug lord while pursued by gangsters and corrupt cops. 

Cooper is a rather pitiful caricature of a hapless blonde redeemed only by the actress’s innate likeability which not even the crass script can totally suppress. 

VERDICT:2/5

BEYOND THE REACH (15, 95mins) 

Director: Jean-Baptiste Leonetti Stars: Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine 

It is always fun to see Michael Douglas playing a slimeball but not even his entertaining performance in Beyond The Reach can elevate the picture beyond divertingly daft B-movie. 

He plays a corporate nasty, Madec, determined to bag a bighorn sheep during a hunting trip in the Mojave Desert with a rather slow-witted young tracker, Ben (Jeremy Irvine).

Alas, he offs an old man by mistake and embroils Ben in a plot to cover up the death that develops into a preposterous cat-and-mouse pursuit across the burning plains. Not as much fun as it should be.

VERDICT: 2/5