Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) review

Fifth (!) entry in the Mission: Impossible movie series once again has the indestructible Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, still agile in his fifties) saving the World (almost) single-handedly from a secret organization called "The Syndicate" (helmed by professor-ish Sean Harris) while getting tracked down by the CIA (run by, of all people, Alec Baldwin) and dealing with a slippery femme fatale (Rebecca Ferguson). Nothing surprising comes through in the Plotting Department - it moves briskly from set-piece to set-piece, country to country - and the 'spycraft' aspects are dumbed down (everything can be solved with an iPad or some other Mysterious Gizmo); the last hour is a string of lazy contrivances (be on the ready for a glowing red countdown clock!). Cruise (actually) hanging from a plane is a neat image - that devotion to his trade! that authenticity! - but not a single segment in this (flipping cars! underwater follies!) can match the sequence of Cruise dangling from the ceiling in De Palma's first Mission: Impossible ... some nineteen years ago (how that damned time flies!).