Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation review: Tom Cruise's spy series in need of rejuvenation

Director: Christopher McQuarrie; Screenwriter: Christopher McQuarrie; Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris; Running time: 131 mins; Certificate: 12A

Tom Cruise lights the fuse on the latest instalment of the Mission: Impossible series, this time bringing along his Jack Reacher director Christopher McQuarrie to call the shots. Now on his fifth go-around as Ethan Hunt, Cruise has steered the Mission movies away from distinct authorial voices and into showreels for his own daredevil stunt work.

The first three offerings all boasted filmmakers with their own stylistic flourishes (De Palma - tension! Woo - doves! Abrams - lens flare!) that made these intriguing (if not always entirely successful) spy thrillers with a clear identity. Rogue Nation is very much a facsimile of 2011's Ghost Protocol, a woah-look-Cruise-is-really-doing-that-stuff affair. Story innovation and character development fall by the wayside here, idly filing time until the next IMAX-boosted set piece arrives.

This time out the IMF team find themselves disavowed by the CIA while in the midst of tracking down a sinister terror group known as The Syndicate. Hunt, Benji (Simon Pegg), Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Luther (Ving Rhames) go covert, pinballing across the globe on the tail of Sean Harris's polo-necked villain Solomon Lane. Thrown into the mix is Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust, an ass-kicking assassin whose loyalties sway between Hunt and The Syndicate.

The up-and-coming Swedish actress, best known for TV mini-series The White Queen, jolts the film into life, holding her own against Cruise to play an integral role in all of Hunt's death-defying exploits. Ferguson is cool, sexy and lethal, kicking off her heels to deliver one of the more memorable breakthrough performances in recent memory. Forget Idris Elba or Damian Lewis, if you want a truly fresh out-of-the-box casting idea for the next 007, then look no further than Ferguson.

Now on his fifth go-around as Ethan Hunt, Cruise has steered the Mission movies away from distinct authorial voices and into showreels for his own daredevil stunt work.

The rest of the supporting cast acquit themselves well, with Renner and Alec Baldwin making good on the little screen time they have and Tom Hollander raising an eyebrow as the Prime Minister. His ascent from In the Loop's beleaguered politician to 10 Downing Street briefly takes the film into the realm of Mission Difficult, Difficult, Lemon Difficult.

Tonally Rogue Nation swerves all over the place, flipping between intense, crunching violence, old-school espionage tension and excruciatingly awkward comedy. On the latter point, it's Pegg who's the main culprit, puncturing an exhilarating chase through the streets of Casablanca while Pegg endlessly wails as he rides shotgun.

McQuarrie hangs the film around four big action sequences: Cruise dangling from a plane as it takes off, an assassination attempt at the Vienna Opera and an underwater heist that transitions into a high-octane motorcycle chase. All deliver the required adrenaline shot the film needs, and bolster the notion that Cruise himself is the last movie star standing. He makes the grandest entrance imaginable, emerging over a grass clearing to sprint across the wing of a plane in the opening sequence.

Cruise is, conversely, the Mission: Impossible franchise's biggest asset and drawback. The films have evolved to a point where they're servicing their leading man's adrenaline junkie tendencies, but to the detriment of a compelling whole. Though Rogue Nation is perfectly serviceable old-fashioned summer entertainment, this is starting to feel like a series in need of rejuvenation.

Simon Reynolds

Movies Editor 

Simon has worked as a journalist for more than a decade, writing on staff and freelance for Hearst, Dennis, Future and Autovia titles before joining Cision in 2022.