In an
age when cinephiles continue to bemoan the glut (and the fiscal
success) of unoriginal populist entertainment, I feel it's important
to remember not all unoriginal populist entertainment is created
equal. There's that which is dumb, lazy or poorly made, and there's
that which is so well executed it truly entertains despite its
familiarity. Mission:
Impossible – Rogue Nation,
the fifth in the series of Tom Cruise vehicles which had plateaued at
'mediocre' until Brad Bird's 2011 entry Ghost
Protocol, falls
comfortably into the latter designation.
Thankfully,
you don't need to have followed the previous globe-trotting exploits
of super spy Ethan Hunt (Cruise, barely aged since his first M:I outing in 1996) and his Impossible Mission Force, IMF, to enjoy
Rogue Nation.
You don't even need to follow this one all that closely. In a
franchise whose primary draw is its star and his daring-do, story
details erase themselves from one's memory as readily as the famously
self-destructing messages that send Ethan on his next mission, should
he choose to accept it. Which he does, of course.
