What is it, do you suppose, that Ethan Hunt — the protagonist played by Tom Cruise in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise — does in his downtime?
Judging by his ripped physique, he works out quite a bit, and the expensive-looking cut of his hair suggests he visits a fancy stylist with frequency. He wears expertly cut suits that suggest a long-standing relationship with a pricey tailor.
But beyond the physical, it’s hard to imagine what he might be like when he’s not cavorting around the world and participating in fantastically complex break-ins of famous international locations.
Does he have a personal life? Hobbies? Friends? Preferences or personal tastes of any kind?
The third film in the series briefly cast him as a married man who disguised himself as a mild-mannered government traffic analyst, but that pretense was mostly dropped in the follow-up, “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” and has vanished entirely in the latest entry, “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.”
Even Hunt’s spy-mission teammates tend to come and go without explanation. A fellow agent played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers disappeared after the third installment; another one played by Paula Patton went missing after the fourth. Only Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell has appeared in all five films. Otherwise, Hunt is an island — a man with no obvious past or personality.
Like its protagonist, the “Mission: Impossible” series is one with no discernible inner life. It is a film franchise entirely concerned with surface and spectacle, with twists and turns that lead only to more twists and turns, and elaborately choreographed action set pieces that exist mostly for their own sake.
At its worst (“Mission: Impossible 2”), this makes the series play like a high-dollar vanity project for Mr. Cruise. At its best, the “Impossible” franchise provides the same sort of amusement one finds watching an elaborately designed domino chain in action. There’s no emotional investment, but done well, it’s surprisingly thrilling to see how the pieces have been set up, and then watch how they fall.
“Rogue Nation” is not the series’ best, but it’s not bad either. Under the direction of Mr. Cruise’s frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie (he also wrote and directed the 2012 Cruise vehicle “Jack Reacher”), the film embraces the series’ identity as a cinematic stunt show held together with a handful of gnarly plot twists.
The movie opens with a trailer-stealing scene in which Hunt grabs the outside of a cargo plane as it’s about to take off. And then, predictably, it takes off, with Mr. Cruise’s wind-swept alter ego clinging to its side, as his hair and his suit jacket flap perfectly in the jet stream.
It’s a great image, the kind you can get only with a $200 million budget and a superstar who does his own stunts, although what it ultimately has to do with the rest of the movie isn’t entirely clear. But then, what the rest of the movie has to do with anything isn’t entirely clear either.
The story follows Hunt’s pursuit of — what else? — a secret file also wanted by a group known as the Syndicate, a villainous counterpart to Hunt’s own spy organization, the delightfully named Impossible Mission Force, which has been shuttered by a stiff bureaucrat (an underused Alec Baldwin).
Hunt is aided, once again, by fellow agents Stickell, Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Benji (Simon Pegg), and joined by a mysterious woman, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who, if the leading ladies of the previous films are much indication, won’t stick around for a sequel.
The supporting cast is fine, but, perhaps by design, none makes enough of an impression to draw attention away from the star. The story, meanwhile, is just an excuse for the stunts, and the stunts are just an excuse to show off Mr. Cruise in action. Even in his 50s, he is still in fine fighting form, which the movie unsubtly highlights in multiple scenes involving shirtlessness.
This is the action-hero alter ego that Mr. Cruise, who is said to be intensely involved in developing the franchise, has designed for himself — an impossibly attractive, perfectly competent cipher. It’s an approach designed to reveal little about the character, yet it may unintentionally suggest what Hunt, the superspy who can famously impersonate anyone, is doing in his off hours — moonlighting, secretly, as Tom Cruise.
TITLE: “Mission: Imossible — Rogue Nation”
CREDITS: Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie
RATING: PG-13 for action-movie violence
RUNNING TIME: 131 minutes
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