Defying the logic of diminishing returns on franchises, the Mission Impossible team is currently working on the sixth film for next year. That will put movie six out 22 years after movie one with largely the same cast intact. It was a franchise that didn’t really explode until JJ Abrams and Brad Bird delivered movies three and four, and they stand as two of the best action movies in recent memory. Christopher McQuarrie’s Rogue Nation wasn’t quite up to par with those two, but delivered a tremendously good time starting from this: the very first scene in the film. You have Simon Pegg freaking out in a ghillie suit while everyone on the team is screaming at him, which is a nice bit of reminding everyone of the current IMF team. All in pursuit of getting poor Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) from OUTSIDE the giant plane he’s currently dangling off like a wind sock to INSIDE the giant plane before he becomes meat paste. It’s Mission Impossible at its finest.
Killing Time 