Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A well put together spy thriller.  Plenty of suspenseful action.  More of a buddy film than a team film.

The Impossible Mission Force (IMF) is back and this time they’re fighting to take down a shadow force of anti-IMF agents called the Syndicate determined to reshape the world into something something pretend I’m saying something that makes sense by performing all sorts of heinous deeds.  Yeah, the whole plan for what the Syndicate is trying to accomplish is kind of vague, but that can be forgiven because the rest of the movie is pretty solid.

There is not really an IMF this time, it having been disbanded early in the movie.  What we have is Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) going all rogue (though not the rogue in the title) in an effort to find out what the Syndicate (the rogue in the title) is up to.  Ethan eventually gets Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) to help him in his shenanigans, but that’s mostly it.  The other regulars are more thrown in for exposition in the case of William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) or for “oh am I in this too?” for Luther Stickwell (Ving Rhames).  There is also the femme fatal, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who you are never quite sure what side she’s fighting for.  The result is a streamlined spy thriller with a surprisingly tight plot.

What I liked best about the film was the way it used technology.  Most spy thrillers use technology as a means of overcoming human adversaries.  In this film, it is used almost entirely to only overcome other technology, with a little bit of flash thrown in.  The race to use that technology often requires action sequences where it is up to the human to fight against the technology mono-a-machineo.  This makes for a much better film than using technology to save the day or the ample use of fake masks that occurred in the other “Mission: Impossible” films.

There is much to like here and much to recommend.  This is a movie that doesn’t really slow down much for its entire 131 minutes running time.  The result is leaving the theater with a feeling of time well spent.  I can’t really see any fans of the genre being disappointed in the movie.