Should You Choose To Accept It.. For The Fifth Time

Tom Cruise might be my favorite actor of all time. He's just so good. He's the true Hollywood star of our times. He's so recognizable. If I say Chris Pratt or Christian Bale to some random people, they might not know them. But names like Tom Cruise or Leonardo DiCaprio are the ones that keep Hollywood running. So, Tom Cruise is back this year after last year's sci-fi action spectacular Edge of Tomorrow with Emily Blunt. He's now in his flagship franchise's installment number five, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. He's joined with his frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie who directed him in Jack Reacher. The returning cast include Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg. Newcomers here are Rebecca Ferguson and Alec Baldwin. I'm pretty excited to see this film although my excitement isn't going through the roof. We're still pretty surprised it got moved five months earlier than the original date.

Ethan Hunt and his crew are on a mission to track down a rogue organization called The Syndicate who's main objective is to infiltrate and destroy spy and intel agencies such as IMF (not the International Monetary Fund). In the meantime, the IMF are undergoing an inspection from CIA for its missions that had ruined things, causing mayhem all over the globe. Ethan Hunt is then, once again,  disavowed and became an international fugitive for CIA while also doing his own mission to stop The Syndicate once and for all.

I'd like to think the Mission: Impossible sequels peaked with J.J. Abrams' installment number three. That is still my favorite apart from the first one. We do not go to Mission: Impossible for a very intricate spy story right? You go for the thrill and spectacle, which Ghost Protocol delivered. Rogue Nation, in my opinion, laid out its story really well. Kudos to McQuarrie, he always write the good stories. However, I think this installment lacked the spectacle and thrill. John Woo's M:I-2 also suffered the same thing. The great stunt was at the beginning, Woo's no-harness rock-climbing is this movie's hanging-on-a-flying-plane sequence. After that, the movie could only hang on to story and below-Mission: Impossible-standard action scenes. I'm not bashing the movie, it has its moments. McQuarrie's really good at staging and directing chase scenes like the one we previously saw in Jack Reacher. The underwater computer thingy-sequence was also thrilling, although the actual technicality of the computer is so over-the-top. The opera scene is also top-notch. Sadly, for a Mission: Impossible movie those are not enough. I think Ghost Protocol made up its lack in plot with the action scenes, like 70:30 for action and story, while this one has an 40:60 ratio of action and story

Tom Cruise delivered his best as always. The rest of the cast too, although not enough action for both Renner and Rhames, (it's probably either more in Age of Ultron or in this movie for Renner) and Pegg isn't as funny as before. The breakout star here is Rebecca Ferguson who played Ilsa Faust. Also commendable is the composer Joe Kraemer whose works are mostly on television but amazingly mixed the iconic Mission Impossible theme with action score that really works. I like this movie for the fact it doesn't rely on the characters hanging on a rope or just hanging two inches from the floor. The first three movies have Tom Cruise doing that and the fourth has Jeremy Renner doing it. Also after being criminally unused in Ghost Protocol, it is the return of the masks! YES (Oops probably that's a spoiler). Also Tom Cruise name-dropped Jakarta! Movie number six, go there! I like the very well-directed action scenes, the locations, the casts. It's a very good movie actually, but it's just a few steps shy for being a great Mission: Impossible movie. The best sequel is still M:I:3. But still, thank you Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie for giving us a blast this summer. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation: rated 3.5/4


Oh, and I also watched Jurassic World for the second time and I am not bored yet!
PS. might disappear for like two weeks. But will return in gloryyy
[cue John Legend and Common's Glory]