Good, but still can't beat Ghost Protocol

Rating: 7/10 (7 August 2015)

After preventing a batch of nerve gas transport to Syria, Ethan Hunt gets trapped by the Syndicate, the organization he's been tracking, and a figure reveals himself to Ethan. In captive a female Syndicate agent helps him escape from Janik Vinter. At the same time the IMF gets shut down by CIA Director Hunley. So Ethan goes ghost again for the next six months investigating more about the Syndicate. He gets Benji to help him on a mission in the Vienna opera, convinced that the figure will be there too. Ethan finds the female agent and two other Syndicate agents aiming for the Austrian chancellor, so he clips the chancellor to prevent his killing. Ethan finds the female agent and together they escape the building, only to be chased down by Syndicate agents and the chancellor gets killed by a car bomb. The female agent introduces herself as Ilsa Faust, a deep cover inserted by MI6 into the Syndicate. Ethan has to let her go to lose the pursuers, but he already gets her lipstick, which actually has a hidden USB compartment.
They meet again in the Moroccos where Ilsa explains about Syndicate leader Solomon Lane and a file kept in an offline secure computer facility. Ethan has to swim and hold his breath for three minutes to install a security profile to help Benji copy the file. Ethan passes out right after installing the profile but Ilsa goes in and helps him exit. But Ilsa steals the file from Benji and escapes, so Etha and Benji pursues her, who are also getting chased by Syndicate agents. Eventually she loses them all and brings the file to Atlee, her handler in MI6. Atlee denies her request to get out of cover and instead sends her and the file back to Lane. Lane finds the file has been deleted, but they all know that Ethan already made another copy. Ethan's team finds the file to be a British virtual red box, unlock-able only by the UK prime minister. Lane then kidnaps Benji while the team meets with Ilsa. Ethan then convinces his team to help him, particularly Brandt who gets anxious about the mission.
Brandt phones Hunley to meet him in London, convincing Hunley that the PM's life is in danger. Hunley goes to Atlee, who is in fact the Chief at MI6, and they with Brandt secures the PM in a room and explains things to him. While unlocking the file, the PM reveals that the Syndicate is real, the brain-child of Atlee, which surprises Hunley which all this time disbelieves Hunt about it. Ethan reveals himself behind a mask of Atlee's face and Hunley gets to be the hero when the real Atlee arrives. With the file Ethan faces Lane, who has Benji hostage with a bomb. After an argument Lane releases Benji, but then hunts Ethan and Ilsa. Ilsa ultimately faces and kills Vinter. Ethan eventually manages to trap Lane in a box, a payback to what he did in the movie's start.
The story feels nicely comparable to previous Mission Impossible movies. All the signature elements are still in play; the hidden message compartment, the face mask, and the intrigue and deception among intelligence agents. As a whole, this installment feel somewhat lacking, especially if we compare it to the last in Ghost Protocol. The thing is that despite that the basic premise of having an anti-IMF organization hell bent on destroying the system of the world feels very urgent, yet the movie didn't really keep up with this and lacks in depicting the sense urgency in it.
The characters in the movie are developed in an unbalanced fashion. While Ethan Hunt and his team has the starting capital of the character development from the previous movies, The balancing character angles have very poor development or even screen time in that manner. The character Solomon Lane succeeded in inciting curiosity after the cold introduction. Yet he rarely gets seen on the rest of the movie that his character feels quite empty.
The action is quite good in overall. They still look very much a Mission Impossible action scenes with cool looking action scenes. Although again they didn't really help the movie as a whole, especially in creating enough suspense. Many of the action sequences looks repetitive either in previous Mission Impossible movies, such as the bicycle chase sequence, or any other spy movies, such as the rooftop escape sequence that is reminiscent of Bond movies. Still many of them had impossible continuance, like Ethan having no scratch after his bicycle accident.
The acting overall is a good one for me. Tom Cruise acted his parts nicely and this time managed to cut down his grinning which made Ethan look stupid in the previous movies. Simon Pegg did his parts nicely although his character here seems like he's only a sweetener. Rebecca Ferguson is indeed the movie's crown jewel with her charming and convincing performance and her character's high significance. It's too bad that we don't see Jeremy Renner in any action, though.
My final say is a solid 7 out of 10 score for Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015). A recommendation is a definite yes from me. Although this movie can't really top Ghost Protocol, it can still give us nice action sequences.