Sum of its parts is better than the whole... Review on Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Nearly a decade ago, in Mission Impossible 3, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt(A secret agent working for IMF) asks Laurence Fishburne's Theodore Brassel(Head of the IMF) - What the hell is Rabits Foot? As the curtains rolled out we get a grimace on both Brassel's face as well on Hunt's as if they've just finished shooting a live footage of President Obama playing street football with a five year old punk wearing some bugs bunny tshirt or something. And while walking out, we kinda realize neither we, nor the characters know as to what constitutes this so-called Rabit's foot-hole theory.(Does it really matter?) It is apparently the archetype that drove an otherwise silly yet harmless action vehicle that was also wildly entertaining as long as it lasted.

For me that sequence just summed up what the Mission Impossible movies were all about. Just mindless, preposterous action pictures that benefited from not taking itself too seriously. As the heart and soul of those movies, they had a charismatic Tom Cruise firing on all cylinders.

A decade has passed and we still get the same old Cruise, a rather slightly older-looking Cruise by the way, playing the same old field agent who is meaner, fitter and facing the same old convoluted problems, fencing in the dark as some would like to say, trying desperately to throw some light(and make some sense) into the otherwise ambiguous, corporate world that circles along with him.

(There is a look of confound and embarrassment on his face. And that just doesn't get wiped off even after the curtains roll out. Guess what? Cruise unconvinced about the plot? Or is it just how that character looks? Could never tell)

Some things have held firm throughout the “Mission: Impossible” films, not least a resolute belief that the globe is made for trotting. Cruise globbetrotts hrough Vienna, Morocco, Casablanca, Paris, London and what not? I just can't believe how the plot of these movies look as incongruous as the movie before it - innocent men on the run, too many sub plots, double agents with hidden motifs, lots of fudging and a crooked up story that pretends to be the king of all corporate espionage thrillers.

Lets begin with Hunt himself. He is the engine thats driving this engine-spurting vehicular mayhem isn't he? If you remember the goings on in the previous mission, ghost protocol well enough, you might as well know that Ethan and the IMF were in a way responsible for the bombings in Cremlin all due to their sheer recklessness. Now Allen Hunley, the head of the CIA, played by Alec Baldin is hellbent on IMF being disbanded. Why? Because he also thinks batman IMF is a reckless vigilante. In a senate oversight committe meeting alongside IMF's agent William(Jeremy Renner) Baldin succeeds in disbanding the IMF and thereby absorbing them into CIA.

Out in the cold, Ethan has other problems to care about besides the IMF getting disbanded and his once close friends William and Benjee getting degraded into mere "data mining computer geeks." He is after a criminal organization called "The Syndicate" a criminal organization killing world leaders for god knows what purposes? To take world controle? So be it. James Bond would welcome that with both hands.(This plot actually takes cues from none other than the Bourne series itself.)

Hunt believes the syndicate is the real deal but, yet, few buys his story. Even the re-recruited Benjee has his eye brows raised while William agrees to his highly dangerous plans albeit grudgingly. To track down the origins of The Syndicate and thereby prove his and in-turn the IMF's worth, hunt has to surpass obstacles that are, for once, beyond the impossible.

Apart from the stereotyped villain/s and the obligatory supporting casts, rogue nation also sports a revelation in Rebecca Ferguson in a role that perfectly marries the blonde haired double agents of the Hitchcock era and the seductive and kinetic brilliance of black widow from the Joss Whedon marvels comics.

For once Christopher McQuarrie gets the lead combination right. As Tom Cruises right hand, Rebecca is just simply alluring. Perfectly finding a balance between deadly Vixen and being thigh-boastng, cleavage-showing eye candy that is.

The dialogue is rich and sublime, not surprisingly so from the hands of an once Academy award winner who has given us such classics as "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled" etc etc(for the usual suspects). At one point Benjee welcomes Ethan with a sly remark "Well let me guess, presumed dead?" Ethan replies "Well tonight I just made it official".

Although marred by an overwrought and often incoherent script that ultimately takes itself too seriously, and derailing itself from the irrestible gimmicks of the original trilogy the film works best when McQuarrie stages spectacular set pieces, like the one at the Vienna opera house which evokes memories of Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much."

My favourite however is a Moroccan motorcycle chase sequence and an underwater sequence, which showcases Robert Elswit, the great cinematographer at his helm.

Now, if only the plot made sense and the action contained more of the same, the movie could have made better use of the talents it has to offer. Like the old saying goes - sum of its parts is better than the whole. My rating? 2.5/5. MS still don't have a half rating option. How sad?