Good action, too corny

Rating: 7/10 (5 August 2015)

As I was leaving the theater, Dr. Fleshly asked me: "So what exactly was the Rogue Nation, anyway? Seemed like it was just a guy." Yes, much like Batman and Ant-Man, Rogue Nation is really just a guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
What is wrong, though, is the nearly laughable performance of Sean Harris as the villain, who was so great and scary in the Red Riding trilogy. Maybe he didn't realize how ridiculous some of his lines were and forgot that the Mission: Impossible series has mutated from Brian De Palma's dark and serious tone to the upbeat and corny Simon Pegg Laff-A-Lympics. Maybe it's a contradiction that I disliked the downbeat seriousness of Avengers: Age of Ultron, but in turn disliked the upbeat corniness of Rogue Nation.
No matter how much work Tom Cruise gets done, he's starting to look old. As long as he can still do the stunts it will be cool, but I hope they don't nuke the fridge someday and have Ethan Hunt go tracking down a crystal skull that has some spy stuff in it. Actually, it wouldn't matter. The plot is the least important part of the Mission: Impossible movies because everything the IMF has to do is "impossible."
What he chases mostly in this movie is Ilsa Faust, who surely made some kind of deal with the devil. We almost get to see her boobies, but we do get to see her in skin-tight motorcycle leathers, so it balances out.
The action sequences are pretty thrilling and more interesting than those from Mad Max: Fury Road. Plus, we get motorcycles going down steps, something that should be worked into every movie. I mean it. And an exploding motorcycle. That is pretty wicked underground cool.
All of the summer blockbuster action movies have at least one thing in common: they are all about 20-30 minutes too long. Just after Rogue Nation's formulaic false conclusion, I wished once again that I had been wearing diapers and had my massage therapist ready.
Alec Baldwin is perfect in his role as CIA director and dishes out his lines with a straight face. His soliloquy to the Prime Minister of Britain is one of the strangest and funniest moments of the whole summer.
The biggest weakness of Rogue Nation is that we must suspend our suspense of disbelief because few of the action sequences are suspenseful because there is never any real fear of any of the main heroes getting killed. And the torture expert, Dr. Bone, doesn't even get to hack anyone's bones off, possibly to keep the movie PG- 13.
We learn friends are important, and really good friends are even more important.
Also, Jeremy Renner is in the movie. He might as well have been Hawkeye again.