Film review: ‘Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation’

It’s been 20 years since the release of the first “Mission: Impossible” picture but never fear – in “Rogue Nation” Tom Cruise looks younger now than he did then. His faith in Scientology has been rewarded with the biceps (not to mention the telekinetic powers!) of an “Operating Thetan III”; though, thinking back on the lack of hot calf shots, at some point you have to ask yourself, “is Ethan Hunt skipping leg day?”

The film is directed from set piece to set piece with occasional aplomb by Christopher McQuarrie, himself entering a third decade of living off praise for how great his script was for “The Usual Suspects.”

In the field, Hunt is on the run from a shadowy organization and seeks the company of a double agent played with the laugh out loud name Ilsa Faust; to address just the first half of her name, she’s-wait for it-meeting with Ethan in Casablanca.

Back stateside, Alec Baldwin enjoys junkyard dogging it as the CIA chief wary of Hunt’s derring-do (he persuasively calls him an “arsonist and fireman at the same time”). Baldwin was cast because he is the best in the world at pronouncing over and over the phrase “The Syndicate,” the Hunt-hunting bad boy club run by Lane (Sean Harris, pallid of skin and recessive of chin). The future of the world, as usual, hangs on who possesses a single thumb drive full of state secrets or bank accounts or something or other.

Cruise turns in a remarkably sexless performance for a super-spy – he doesn’t even arch a threaded eyebrow while telling Ilsa, post-motorcycle chase, “I have to say, you sure can ride.”

Hunt instead acts according to a touchingly childish fixation on who his “friends” are. He’ll put a car in reverse, floor it off an embankment and absorb a multi-story fall, but only if Benji (Simon Pegg) insists again that they’re good buddies who trust each other. You will not confuse the spy craft in “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” with the mental warfare in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” but you will be reminded that Cruise vehicles go on banking billions thanks to his desperate need to be loved.

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“Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” is showing at the Sonoma 9 Cinemas. Rated PG-13. Running time 2:11. Visit www.cinemawest.com.