Maybe I shouldn't have watched this just after having watched Spectre, bu twe certainly have the parallels of the secret agent getting old - which mimics the real life story of these franchises, and perhaps even the genre itself. Are they still relevant in the days of ultimate information gathering and drone strikes? Are they truly relics from a Cold War mindset?
And yes there is the idea of "How do we sell this to the youth market and make money? Oh yeah! Explosions!"
For me, I've seen enough explosions. To me, car chases and things blowing up is just to fill time so I can get back to the story. So for this story, I have to say that Rogue Nation had more of a tight plot than Spectre. This one stayed on point. The Rogue Nation was supposed to me the Impossible Missions Force of Her Majesty's Service, but like true Brexiters, they broke off and went all "maverick-y" and basically this bad guy's wanting to take over the world, but he's starting by trying to get to all the secret billions of dollars that the British government secreted away to fund the group before they canned the group. In other words, it's a practical first step for a rogue spy/terror organization. That was nice.
Then you have the sexy secret agent, very nicely acted. Not just a woman who can handle herself in a fight (even better than Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt), but also smart and savvy. A little too ethically convicted to be an effective double agent, but whatcha gonna do?
I do appreciate the several times in which Ethan Hunt's antics and the successes of Impossible Missions Force were considered more to be sheer luck than actual talent or ingenuity. That played out well and was a nice touch to bring Ethan Hunt down to earth. In most of Cruise's movies he's always played some sort of Superman without a cape. Now that we can start to see some lines on his face it's good to see him start trying to bring some actual frailty into his characters.
All in all, a very nice couple of hours spent. Not the greatest, but well done.
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