Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Many of your modern action-adventure blockbusters — even those that aren't grim and gritty a la Bond or Batman — tend to carry a bit of excess weight. They lumber along, crushing anything in their path. It's therefore something of a refreshing surprise to see the Mission: Impossible franchise bucking the trend, especially in its last couple of chapters.

The last film in the series, Ghost Protocol, had a spry vim and vigour that belied its scale and scope. And the new Mission: Impossible movie, subtitled Rogue Nation, goes it one better: it's positively nimble.

Don't get me wrong, audiences after car chases, motorcycle chases, foot chases, gunfights, fistfights, daring break-ins and even more daring break-outs won't feel short-changed by the latest globe-trotting mission by super-spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his colleagues at the top-secret Impossible Mission Force, because Rogue Nation has all that in abundance. And it also has Cruise once again risking life and limb for our entertainment, this time by clinging to the side of a plane as it leaves the runway and takes to the sky.

But its daredevil star and producer, reuniting with Jack Reacher screenwriter-director Christopher McQuarrie, isn't content to let the stunts and set pieces do the heavy lifting here.

There's also a wry, slightly self-deprecating sense of humour — for one thing it gently takes the mickey out of Cruise's action-man persona in a variety of ways — and a central game of double-cross and triple-cross that's complex without being convoluted.

As the film begins, the CIA — led by Alec Baldwin at his puffed-up finest — is finally fed up with the destructive (if world-saving) antics of Hunt and his IMF pals and pulls rank, shutting down their shop and putting out an arrest warrant for Hunt. Bad timing, really, because Hunt finally has a lead on The Syndicate, a worldwide network of wrongdoers with all the dangerous skills of the IMF but no qualms about using them for nefarious purposes.

Tracking down The Syndicate's shadowy mastermind, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, seething nicely), would be tough enough for Hunt without the CIA on his trail, so it's fortunate — or is it? — that he has the help of Syndicate operative Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), whose loyalties are, shall we say, undetermined.

But even with her assistance — and the help of IMF agents Benji (Simon Pegg), Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Luther (Ving Rhames) — the enemy is usually one step ahead.

McQuarrie is a great addition to the Mission: Impossible crew, bringing an Hitchcockian elegance to proceedings, but as always the most valuable player is Cruise, who slyly acknowledges the absurdity of everything that's going on while charging through it like a locomotive.