Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is the latest Tom Cruise spy action adventure installment in the Mission Impossible franchise. This time around it involves Ethan Hunt uncovering anti-IMF Syndicate bent on world chaos. Christopher McQuarrie writes and directs this fifth installment.

The good; the action and stunt work is top notch. It’s very refreshing to see movies of late going back to the “old school” methods of doing practical stunts. I’m glad that the stunt of Cruise hanging off a cargo plane as it takes flight was one of the first things we see in the film, otherwise I would’ve been waiting the entire movie to see how that plays out. McQuarrie does a great job in covering action too, there’s a lot of hand of hand and close quarter battle in this film, for the most part all these scenes are shot from a medium or a wide angle. Of course there’s use of the shakey cam, in this case it was used appropriately, but for the most part, there’s a sense of geography and direction as to who’s in the scene and where it’s taking place.

McQuarrie also does a great job with the story. We’re given a rather typical plot where agent Hunt uncovers a nefarious plan and he’s unable to call on the resources of the IMF team, and must go dark, then go rogue, then save the day granting him a good standing reinstatement, but here we’re given some nice twists and turns along this fun ride. The villain, as portrayed by Sean Harris, is great. In Rogue Nation we have a strong villain that’s smart enough to put the IMF team on its toes. Harris does a superb job in combining cold calculating with creepy and deadly.

Tom Cruise, love or hate him on a personal level, the man is a movie star through and through. He has a presence that carries you through the movie, at no point am I thrown out of this movie.

The bad; I know I mentioned this above, but the story is pretty typical. The thing about Mission Impossible is that it’s a whole agency/division/team with resources to stop these terrorist threats. Agent Hunt has gone rogue too often. This is more of a commentary on society at large, you don’t have to go against the system to do the right thing. Thanks 9/11… thanks.

Overall, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is a lot of fun, go see it in theatres. It’s everything a summer action adventure movie should be. Things blow up, and they blow up well, it just so happens that we have an awesome story with an awesome cast delivering wonderfully executed action sequences.

Oh and I love the poster ads for this film, very retro.