Review of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) by Richard M — 30 Oct 2015

Disappointing on pretty much every level, and pales hard compared to Ghost Protocol. The plot is convoluted and blithering in the same way that drags down so many politics-minded actioners/thrillers these days, from Nolan's stuff to Skyfall to Sherlock to other things that don't come to mind.

It dresses up a weakly-realized cartoon supervillain (who literally shoots one of his own henchman for no reason cuz he's mad I guess. he does that thing. that thing. in 2015) in grown-up political thriller clothes, and overloads the story with stuffy airs, at the expense of efficiency, tautness, and, ironically, believability.

The exposition gets really, really fucking dumb at times, with Hunt at one point rambling like a 16 year old Baby's First Conspiracy theorist (he says "it's all connected"). It's overlong by 40 minutes, and has literally like 2 action set pieces, both of which were in the trailer and both of which underwhelm hard imo.

The opera house sequence was pretty good, and the knife fight toward the end was fine, but daymn is this movie just boring most of the time. The thriller machinations feel completely stale throughout.

I thought Rebecca Ferguson was really great in it though, she was defo the highlight 4 me. Ghost Protocol is still great.