Familiar Franchise Fare, but Flashily Ordinary

Rating: 3/10 (31 August 2015)

Rogue Nation delivers set piece action and thrills to satisfy most of the intended audience, but basically they are rather hackneyed and fourth rate. They do not make up for the acres of empty space at the heart of the movie's plot and characterisation. Let alone the script and direction which are utterly predictable and gone through strictly by numbers. A just about good enough film that does not try too hard. After all, predictability is the key to a franchise success, or a dreadful bore to the uncommitted and unenthusiastic - there really is only an hour's TV episode material here. True, it carries it all off with gloss and panache, but then the Chinese backers would want to be sure on a return for their investment! Tom Cruise (looking older) gives his all-American, polished, believable performance we come to expect in his action genre films, while the support cast do their thing like moving wallpaper. Rebecca Ferguson flaunting her slightly heavy thighs at almost every opportunity is an interesting choice as the femme fatale (good or bad?), but Swedish/UK cool does not add a lot to a very clichéd role. Sean Harris (unrecognisable) tries to method act the chief villain and still manages to make no impression. Just like Philip Seymour Hoffman in an earlier MI, you have to chew a bit of scenery rather than stay cold at a very great distance! Can we have a franchise-free (particularly comic-based ones) and Matt Damon not lost in space year of movies, please, and get back to some straightforward, effects-free entertainment that Hollywood used to do so well!?