4 out of 5

Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie

How do these keep working?  To be a bit more clear – how is it that these movies continue to be so entertaining?  And not, you know – “it’s on, I guess I’ll watch that” entertaining, but truly events; quality starpower, smart direction, amazing spectacle, time and time again.  If it IS on, you might actually think – I wish I’d seen this in the theater.  This thought is especially notable in our modern, effects-jaded viewering, and I smiled at myself while finally remembering to think that when a Mission: Impossible was playing in a theater, so I could sit there during the insane opening sequence of Tom Cruise clinging to a plane – a sequence ruined for all of us by the trailers but still goddamn awesome – and get a great cinematic kick of feeling my stomach drop from the tension.  It’s not just that these films have all been helmed by notable directors; though that undeniably helps, we can all think of some stinkers turned in by our favorite auteur.  I mean, I don’t really know the answer, but it might very well revolve around Cruise.  The passion that he brings to these films not only unites the vibe across the sequels so that they don’t feel like studio-churn, but it seems to up everyone’s game to treat the material with the same unique mix of passion and glee.  I’m not the sole defender of Cruise on this planet, but for as long as I’ve been aware of him as an actor, I’ve believed in him on screen, and it’s these type of projects that really seal the deal.  He’s not an elder action star, and was never the pretty boy with a six pack trying to break into a genre; he seems very sincerely to just be doing what he enjoys, what makes sense to him, and committing himself to it.

And then back to the film.  Which I approached hesitantly, but hopeful.  I was pretty set to enjoy Ghost Protocol because I had faith in Brad Bird, but we’ve been billing McQuarrie as “the Usual Suspects” guy since that movie came out, and otherwise I watched Way of the Gun recently and was fairly displeased.  And then there was Persons Unknown.  So the track record, with me, was unproven besides writing a flick that’s become hard not to hate with all the love it gets.  But at worst, I figured, we’d get an indulgence like M:I II from Woo, which, though my least favorite of the series was still quality entertainment.  Thankfully this was far from worst.  McQuarrie’s skillful composition of the film and script make the most of another spin on the “spy gone rogue” thing that’s essentially been the plot of every M:I by keeping everything in motion.  As pointed out in this review, I realized that the overall structure of the film was unique in how it started big and then slowly weaned us on less and less grandiose stunts until a concluding foot chase can be just as exciting.  This is also something at which the series has excelled, keeping the spycraft as fun as the big stunts, but the movies still tend to follow the expected pace of sprinkling big set pieces and moments throughout, while ‘Rogue Nation’ boils down to small rooms and dark streets and a lot of hero / villain dialogue interplay… all while maintaining its tension.  I also noticed that even the high energy scenes would ditch the quick cut concept (hopefully that’s slowly going away) and McQuarrie would often cue his audience – both in script and shot – without it seeming telegraphed.  It wasn’t insulting.  So instead of showing us something, randomly, because it will be used in a moment, Cruise will look to a detail he’ll be planning on using, the camera will dart to show us this, and then the action kicks off.  This makes us part of the event instead of just a viewer, putting the pieces together along with the characters.  Another element that makes this big, dumb action movie not seem big or dumb at all.

The cast is as charming as they’ve always been, and bless them for keeping the jolly band together throughout.  I wish I could say that with the likes of some of the better Marvel films and Mad Max and Rogue Nation that we’ll be getting a shift in our cinematic joyrides towards films that are willing to respect their audiences intelligence without sacrificing the movie-going experience, but there will always be Michael Bay type films and the like.  As there probably always have been highlights scattered throughout any given year.  But I love that we’ve been able to rely on the M:I series to be worth the viewing time, and Rogue Nation seems to solidify that Ghost Protocol wasn’t just another lucky production.