DISPLAYTITLE: I a Leo Abraham Figueroa
“ | Good evening, Mr. Hunt. The weapons you recovered in Belarus were confirmed to be VX nerve gas capable of devastating a major city. The bodies of the air crew were found less than 24 hours after they landed in Damascus. They were identified as low-level Chechen separatists with neither the access nor the ability to acquire the weapons they were transporting. This would support your suspicion that a shadow organization is committed to inciting revolution by enabling acts of terror in nations friendly to Western interests. IMF suspects this to be the same shadow organization you have been tracking for the last year, also known as the Syndicate. IMF would be right. Normally, you and your team would be tasked with infiltrating and disrupting this terrorist network. But we have taken steps to ensure that this will not happen. Because we are the Syndicate, Mr. Hunt. And now we know who you are. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to face your fate. Pursue us, you will be caught. Resist us, you will be killed, and your precious Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Mr. Hunt. This message will self-destruct in five seconds. | ” |
–The Syndicate's message to Ethan Hunt |
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is an American action spy film written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-written by Drew Pearce. It is the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible series. It stars Tom Cruise, who reprises his role of IMF Agent Ethan Hunt. It is produced by Tom Cruise, J.J. Abrams, and David Ellison of Skydance Productions.
Rogue Nation's plot continues from the end of the last movie: Ethan Hunt believes in the fact that there is an international criminal organization called The Syndicate, an organization the CIA does not believe exists. With IMF again disavowed, Ethan and his team must gather evidence to prove it exists and stop their next attack.
Filming began on August 21, 2014 in Vienna, Austria, and it concluded on March 12, 2015. The film was released in IMAX theaters worldwide and in North America by Paramount Pictures on July 31, 2015.
Plot[]
Belarus - Nerve Gas Operation[]
In Belarus, Ethan Hunt and his team are trying to intercept a package of radioactive VX nerve gas from being delivered to Damascus by Syndicate operatives via an A400M plane. While Benji is attempting to hack into the plane's systems, he finds they are encrypted. Hunt sprints onto the plane's wing and ends up clinging onto the outer door. Dunn is finally able to open the right door, and even though the A400M crew tries to stop Hunt, Hunt parachutes out of the plane with the material and zooms into the opening credits.
London - Capture of Ethan Hunt[]
Hunt goes to an IMF station disguised as a record store in London's Piccadilly Circus. He is delivered his mission: to track down said Syndicate. However, the end of the recording reveals the mission deliverers are the Syndicate. Hunt looks out and sees a man in glasses holding the station operative at gunpoint. The man in glasses fires and kills the girl instantly, and Hunt's room is gassed.
Hunt wakes up and realizes he's tied to a pole. Janik Vinter tortures him, but Syndicate operative Ilsa Faust helps Ethan escape and much to the dismay of the other operatives, the escape is successful.
Washington, D.C.[]
In America, Brandt is brought before a committee that includes Alan Hunley. Hunley believes that the IMF's results are only luck, and their destructive methods have caused various misconducts (despite the IMF's innocence of the Kremlin bombing having already been proven and their close call in San Francisco having averted nuclear war), and attempts to shut down the IMF. Since the Secretary was killed by Anatoly Sidorov, Brandt cannot comment and the shutdown is successful. Hunley orders Hunt to be captured as he is now a wanted man.
Six months later, with the help of his assistant Lauren, Hunley interrogates Dunn but cannot determine that he knows Hunt's location. Hunt sends Dunn some tickets to catch a performance of Turandot in Vienna.
Vienna[]
Dunn arrives in Vienna and is given gadgets and instructions by Hunt. They arrive at the Vienna State Opera, where the Chancellor of Austria is also attending a performance of Turandot. Hunt spots Ilsa, but decides to go after Kagan, the second Syndicate operative. Hunt fights Kagan even as Benji spots Richter, the third Syndicate assassin, in the lighting booth. Benji goes to fight Richter while Hunt sends Kagan falling to his death. Hunt fires at the Chancellor's shoulder, Richter is shot by Ilsa, and Hunt and Ilsa escape only to see the Chancellor killed by a bomb placed in his car as 'insurance'. Dunn picks them both up, but Ilsa leaves them - after dropping hints of the Syndicate's plan - in an attempt to maintain her cover. Hunt explains that the Syndicate consists entirely of disavowed operatives from around the world, and are responsible for the assassinations and disappearances of many world leaders and the subsequent civil wars.
Casablanca[]
Ilsa helps Hunt break into the Syndicate's Moroccan base to retrieve a ledger belonging to the Syndicate. They retrieve the ledger, but Ilsa knocks Benji out and rides off with the ledger, evading both Hunt and the Syndicate. After an intense motorcycle chase, Ilsa escapes with the ledger, much to Hunt's dismay. Dunn had made a copy of the file, but it is impossible to access the file (which is a digital red-box, a security measure used by the British government to transport state secrets) without the biometrics of the British Prime Minister himself; they realise that Lane intends to capture the PM.
London - Capture of Solomon Lane[]
Ilsa returns to London, passing the file on to her handler, Atlee. It is revealed that she is in fact, an MI6 agent. However, Attlee discreetly erases the file, forcing Ilsa to return to the Syndicate and prove her loyalty to its leader, Solomon Lane, who Hunt knows as the man in glasses.
Regrouping with Brandt and Stickell, Hunt and Dunn follow Ilsa back to London, where they debate the nature of their work. Having betrayed one another so many times, they can no longer be certain of their own loyalty, question what to do next as they cannot be sure that Lane has not anticipated and moved to manipulate them. When Dunn is abducted by Lane's men, Hunt realises that Lane will always have a plan to acquire the files, and that the only sure way to stop him is to force a confrontation with him. He agrees to Lane's ultimatum to abduct the British Prime Minister and use his biometrics to unlock the file.
As part of Hunt's plan, Brandt contacts Hunley and reveals their location. Hunley arrives at a charity auction in Oxfordshire to try and prevent Hunt from attacking the Prime Minister, and take him with Brandt and Attlee to a secure room. Brandt has the Prime Minister confirm the existence of the Syndicate: a top-secret black project that sought to recruit disavowed foreign operatives to carry out clandestine missions; an initiative that the Prime Minister rejected as too extreme. Atlee then reveals himself as Hunt in disguise and injects the PM with truth serum to secure his biometrics. When the real Atlee arrives, Hunt injects him with truth serum as well, and forces him to admit that he began the Syndicate without the PM's permission, Lane hijacked the project for his own ends and went rogue, and Atlee has been desperately covering up its existence, including using Faust, ever since. Atlee is arrested, with Hunt having Hunley take the credit for subduing him.
Stickell discovers that the file is not a ledger of agents, but contains the locations and access codes for £2.4 billion in untraceable funds - and a video message from Atlee confirming the Syndicate's activation - that Lane has been desperate to get to expand and camouflage the Syndicate's operations. Hunt destroys the file, heads to the meeting at the Tower of London, and convinces Lane he memorised the data, to force him to release Dunn and Faust. He lures Lane out into the open and into a trap set by Stickell, the same trap that the Syndicate used to capture Hunt, while Faust kills Vinter. Imprisoned in a bulletproof cell, Lane is gassed and taken into custody.
Washington, D.C.[]
Some time later, Hunley and Brandt return to the oversight committee to reinstate the IMF. Hunley suggests that their original meeting gave them a pretext to let Hunt's team infiltrate the government and take down the Syndicate without arousing suspicion. The committee is skeptical, believing Hunley is trying to save face, but agree to restore the IMF when Brandt again refuses to discuss operational matters without permission. Outside, Brandt welcomes Hunley as the new secretary of IMF.
Cast[]
- Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt
- Jeremy Renner as William Brandt
- Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn
- Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust
- Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell
- Sean Harris as Solomon Lane
- Alec Baldwin as Alan Hunley
- Simon McBurney as Atlee
- Zhang Jingchu as Lauren
- Tom Hollander as the Prime Minister
- Jens Hultén as Janik Vinter
- Alec Utgoff as A400 Crewman
- Hermione Corfield as Record Shop Girl
- Robert Maaser as Richter
- Saif Al-Warith as Saif
- Wolfgang Stegemann as Kagan
- Rupert Wickham as the Chancellor of Austria
- Mateo Rufino as A400 Pilot 1
- Fernando Abadie as A400 Pilot 2
Music[]
- The A400
- Solomon Lane
- Good Evening, Mr. Hunt
- Escape to Danger
- Havana to Vienna
- A Flight at the Opera
- The Syndicate
- The Plan
- It's Impossible
- The Torus
- Morocco Pursuit
- Grave Consequences
- A Matter Of Going
- The Blenheim Sequence
- Audience with the Prime Minister
- This is the End, Mr. Hunt
- A Foggy Night in London
- Meet the IMF
- Finale and Curtain Call
Reception[]
Box Office[]
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation grossed $195 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $487.7 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $682.7 million. Although Rogue Nation was projected to become the highest-grossing Mission: Impossible film and the biggest movie for Cruise, it apparently fell short of eclipsing Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol's final gross to become the second-highest-grossing Mission: Impossible film and the third-biggest film for Cruise. It had a worldwide opening of $121 million and an IMAX worldwide opening total of $12.5 million (the third-biggest of July behind The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011)). Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $108.9 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film.
In the United States and Canada, according to pre-release tracking, the film was projected to earn around $40–50 million in its opening weekend, less than what the first three Mission: Impossible films earned in their initial weekend. It made $4 million from its Thursday night showings which began at 8 p.m. from 2,764 theaters, and $20.3 million on its opening day, which is the second-biggest opening day for Cruise (behind War of the Worlds) and the biggest in the Mission: Impossible franchise (breaking Mission: Impossible 2's record), with 16% of ticket sales from the film's 367 IMAX theaters. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $55.5 million exceeding expectations and is the second-highest opening in the franchise, behind Mission: Impossible 2 ($57.8 million) and the third-biggest for Cruise behind War of the Worlds ($64.8 million) and Mission: Impossible 2. IMAX contributed $8.4 million of the total opening gross from 369 IMAX screens which is the third-best for a July opening after The Dark Knight Rises ($19 million) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($15.2 million). Premium large format grossed up $2.6 million, 13% of Friday's gross with Cinemark XD grossing close to $700,000 at 108 screens. It remained at the top spot for the second weekend earning an estimated $28.5 million (down 48.7%) from 3,988 theaters (32+ theaters) buoyed by strong word of mouth, rapturous reviews and strong plays at IMAX theaters. Revenues from IMAX also dropped steadily by 39% to $4.3 million in its second weekend. It topped the North American box office for two consecutive weekends until surpassed by the music biographical drama Straight Outta Compton in its third weekend. It ended its theatrical run on October 29, 2015, playing in theaters for a total of 91 days, or 13 weeks, earning a total of $195 million at the North American box office which is just 28.6% of its total worldwide gross. It is the fourth-highest-grossing Mission: Impossible film behind Mission: Impossible Fallout ($220 million), Mission: Impossible 2 ($215 million) and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ($209 million).
Elsewhere, the film opened in 40 international markets including 135 IMAX theaters on July 31, 2015, in big markets such the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Australia. It grossed $64.5 million in its opening weekend and went No. 1 in 33 markets and IMAX contributed $4.1 million of its international opening. Revenues from its second weekend increased by 0.5% to $65 million. It added 18 new markets including India, Japan, and Russia and opened at No. 1 in 17 of the 18 markets with the exception of Japan where it was behind Jurassic World. Overall, it opened at No. 1 in 55 of the 63 territories it has been released in and had the biggest opening weekend ever for the franchise in 46 markets and Cruise's best opening in 40 markets. It topped the box office outside of North America for three consecutive weekends before being overtaken by Paramount's own Terminator Genisys in its fourth weekend and four in total.
It had the biggest opening for the franchise in the UK, Ireland and Malta ($8.3 million), France ($7 million), India ($7.5 million), Japan ($6.1 million), Russia and the CIS ($5.3 million), Mexico ($5 million), the Middle East ($4.7; including $2.5 million from UAE alone), Taiwan ($5.1 million), Australia ($3.8 million), Germany ($3.2 million), Brazil ($3.1 million) and Pakistan ($1 million). In South Korea, where the franchise has been a hit it opened to $16.95 million (49% above Ghost Protocol), which is the second-biggest opening ever for Paramount, behind Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Cruise's biggest-ever opening; the best for the Mission: Impossible franchise; and the second-biggest opening for a Western film of 2015. It added $8.1 and $3.7 million in its second and third weekend for a total of $41.1 million making South Korea the film's second-highest market followed by Japan ($41.2 million), the United Kingdom ($32 million), France ($20.9 million), and Germany ($13 million). In Japan, it faced competition with the continued run of Jurassic World. In China, Rogue Nation emerged very successful and earned $18.5 million on its opening day of September 8 (including $1.4 million from midnight screenings), which is the country's biggest opening for a Hollywood 2D film, the second-biggest for any 2D film in China (only behind the $22.2 million debut of local 2D film Pancake Man), and the fifth-biggest opening for any film. Despite opening on a Tuesday—during which most children are off to school—the film opened successfully and almost matched the opening figure of North America. Rob Cain of Forbes cited out possible reasons for the successful opening: the well-establishment of the franchise in China (its immediate predecessor Ghost Protocol earned $102.7 million), rapid expansion and growth of Chinese movie market, being the second Hollywood movie (after Terminator Genisys) to be released after the nearly 60-day blackout period in which non-Chinese movies were dabarred from going to general release in the country, and the successful awareness campaign and marketing efforts by the team including Tom Cruise visiting several Chinese cities. It went on to earn an estimated $85.8 million through its opening weekend (Tuesday–Sunday) from 5,500 screens. It is the highest-grossing 2D Hollywood film there with $136.8 million (breaking Interstellar's record). Rogue Nation was projected to make roughly 70% of its worldwide gross abroad, and indeed ended up making $487,287,762 or 71.4% of its entire worldwide gross overseas which is the second highest among the series.
Critics[]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation has a rating of 94% based on 328 reviews and an average rating of 7.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation continues the franchise's thrilling resurgence—and proves that Tom Cruise remains an action star without equal.". the sites Audience Score sits at 87% with over 50,000 verified ratings. Metacritic gives the film a score of 75 out of 100 based on 46 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe called the film "preposterously enjoyable" and said that it "unfolds with fluid, twisty, old-school pleasure," highlighting the performances of Cruise, Pegg, Ferguson, and Baldwin and comparing the action scenes to those of the James Bond films as well as Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). He ultimately gave the film 3 out of 4 stars. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Rogue Nation 3.5 out of 4 stars, highly praising the film's cast and stating that the film "keeps topping itself". However, he criticized the villain for not being too memorable or intimidating. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said that McQuarrie's direction allowed Rogue Nation to stand out among the other films in terms of action and its inclusion of female characters, singling out Ferguson's Ilsa as uniquely empowered and action-oriented, also praising her scenes with Cruise. Christopher Orr of The Atlantic praised Cruise, saying "You overcome the impossible through the application of sheer, unvarnished willpower, a quality that Cruise has always possessed in abundance" and describing him as the driving force of the film and the franchise. He, too, praised Ferguson among the supporting cast for her role as an action heroine. Joseph Wigler of MTV.com considered the movie as "one of the most entertaining Ethan Hunt adventures" which proves that "the franchise still has plenty of fight left in it, with no signs of slowing down." He praised the performances of Cruise and Ferguson, applauding the latter for playing "the most fascinating character in the entire movie" and "one of the most complicated and alluring characters in the entire five film series." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times stated "Sleek and bloated, specific and generic, 'Rogue Nation' is pretty much like most of the 'Impossible' movies in that it's an immense machine that Mr. McQuarrie, after tinkering and oiling, has cranked up again and set humming with twists and turns, global trotting and gadgets, a crack supporting cast and a hard-working star."
A. A. Dowd of The A.V. Club remarked, "Rather than go full auteur on his formulaic material, McQuarrie instead offers a kind of greatest-hits package: 'Rogue Nation' marries the shifting loyalties of Brian De Palma's original to the kinetic action beats of John Woo's series nadir and the all-set-piece structure of Brad Bird's series zenith, adding an omnipotent villain not far removed from the one Philip Seymour Hoffman played in J.J. Abrams' entry. It's the least visually or conceptually distinctive of the five movies, leaning on what's worked before rather than forging its own path." Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+, calling it "breathlessly thrilling" and giving high praise to its action sequences, saying " all you can do is pick your jaw off your lap and grin at the breathtakingly bananas spectacle you've just witnessed." Meanwhile, David Edelstein of Vulture.com called Ferguson the "best reason" to see the film. However, he felt it did not surpass its predecessor and singled out several elements of some of the action sequences for criticism. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal also praised Ferguson but felt that she and Cruise had "zero chemistry" onscreen. Nonetheless, he praised the film for working "ingenious changes on old tropes". Daniel Krupa of IGN only gave the film a score of 7/10, praising the action sequences and the performances of the central cast but criticizing it for not adding enough to the series or expanding on the plot of Ghost Protocol.
Trivia[]
- In the Opera in Vienna, when the Austrian Chancellor is shot, he shouts out indignanty, "It's just a fleshwound!," referencing Monty Python.