Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Tom Cruise’s fifth outing as daredevil spy Ethan Hunt, delivers another hugely entertaining round of white-knuckle thrills teetering on the edge of absurdity.
And it’s the dizzying audacity of the film’s opening scene – which finds Hunt clinging to the side of a cargo plane as it careers down a runway and takes off – that softens us up for the preposterousness of the ensuing plot.
With Alec Baldwin’s testy CIA chief striving to disband the Impossible Mission Force, Hunt is on the trail of a shadowy organisation of renegade spies, aided by Simon Pegg’s bungling comic-relief sidekick Benji and by lithe and mysterious femme fatale Ilsa Faust (terrific Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson).
Along the way, there’s a gripping, Hitchcockian suspense scene at the Vienna Opera and a scorching motorcycle chase through Casablanca, before things reach a climax in London with some typically dextrous and dazzling IMF trickery.
Certificate 12. Runtime 131 mins. Director Christopher McQuarrie
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is available on Blu-ray & DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment from Monday 7th December.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIyFIZIgwA
