‘Rogue Nation’ cast helps franchise evolve beyond stunts

Forget his personal life and talk show appearances; where it truly counts, Cruise is the whole package: talented, charismatic, energetic and dedicated to a near-suicidal degree. But Cruise doesn’t play Hunt; he is Hunt, and although the franchise has maintained its identity as a commercial for Cruise’s own awesomeness, Cruise is one of the few players left in Hollywood to instinctively know that even a vanity project has to give the audience its money’s worth. The other three each have their charms, from Brian DePalma’s wonky surveillance-state riff in the original film to JJ Abrams’s clever de-escalation of the franchise in the third chapter to Brad Bird’s supremely confident blockbuster in Ghost Protocol. This man behind this one is Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher), and he bestows upon Rogue Nation exemplary craft-this is as well-made an action film as you will see this year.

The story is generic and the screenplay by director Christopher McQuarrie meanders with fine, action-packed sequences that do not leave you with a lasting impression. He strikes a tone that is playful, but not stakes-free. One just can’t anticipate the next scene. He pulls off the neat trick of telling a story that is about vertiginous moral confusion without ever becoming confusing. Hunt gets the old team out from behind their desks – and in the case of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), out of retirement – to stop the Syndicate from – well, doing something that’s probably real bad. It’s a well known fact that this is a Cruise film all the way, however, it is Sean Harris as Soloman Lane and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa who shine in the film.

Ian Robertson, Member of the Board of Management for BMW AG said, “Dynamic performance and BMW Connected Drive make BMW models the ideal cars for Ethan Hunt and his team, who use the vehicles’ ground-breaking functions and cutting-edge technology to make sure the good guys come out on top”. By now, dude has saved our global bacon in so many spectacular ways, another agent tells him that there’s no way all the things she’s heard about him could be true. Ferguson is the movie’s violent, beating heart. Jeremy Renner is back as Brandt too, and will add a dash of humour to the film. A lot of the comic relief in this movie is put on the shoulders of Pegg, who has proven himself in the past as a gifted comic actor. He is still searching for Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) who is the syndicate fugitive who captured him.

At its core, “Rogue Nation” is a spy movie, and it has all the major pieces you would expect. Tom Cruise’s coolest stunt comes right in the beginning when he jumps over a plane and tries to get in while it is in mid-air. “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” headed into the weekend with expectations of a $40 million opening in the U.S. and Canada, but Paramount Pictures on Sunday reported that its Tom Cruise film did even better, bringing in an estimated $56 million.