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Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation' a thrill ride, but script disappoints

My disappointment with Christopher McQuarrie's "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation" has nothing to do with its entertainment value.

Just its sophomoric script and cartoon action sequences.

This fifth entry into the "Mission: Impossible" film franchise never bores as it breathlessly rushes from one action set piece to the next, allowing enough time for Tom Cruise to recover from torture, beatings and near asphyxiation to go once more unto the breach to save the world.

From what? Old and moldy action film clichés?

"Rogue Nation" resembles a tongue-in-cheek, go-for-laughs James Bond movie from the 1970s. A dopey plot involving another one of those shadow organizations with a nefarious-sounding name (Here, Cruise's Ethan Hunt takes on "The Syndicate.") connects several spectacular international action sequences that push the boundaries of realism into outrageous Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner territory.

When Hunt fires a single bullet during an assassination attempt in an opera house (Didn't Alfred Hitchcock already do this?), he hits his target. Syndicate agents, who apparently make worse marksmen than the henchmen in 007 adventures, unload cases of bullets at Hunt and his fellow IMF agents and miss every time.

"Rogue Nation" comes equipped with overwritten, exposition-heavy dialogue that none of the IMF agents would actually say to each other outside of a movie.

The opening scene plays like a comedy routine as Hunt and his colleagues Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames) and boss William (Jeremy Renner) obsess about a "package" aboard an airplane about to depart.

One confirms the package is on the plane. Someone warns they've got to get that package. William repeats they've got to get that package and it's on the plane.

"The package is on the plane!" Luther finally snaps. "We get it!" And we got it long before he did.

Hard to believe that McQuarrie, who wrote the sly and sophisticated thriller "The Usual Suspects," dumbed-down the dialogue in Drew Pearce's espionage story to this extent.

"Remember," William says to his agents, "we're under investigation for misconduct!" Because what? They forgot?

Yep. CIA boss Alan Huntley (Alec Baldwin) dismantles the Impossible Missions Force for not being transparent and accountable to Congress. Hunt goes rogue in a good way.

He sets out to prove that the rumored Syndicate indeed exists. This is confirmed by its resident torture specialist, the Bone Doctor (Jens Hulten), who intends to ply his trade on a captured, half-naked Hunt early in the story.

Fortunately, Hunt has a good-luck charm in British agent Ilsa Faust (a highly athletic and charming Rebecca Ferguson), who has infiltrated the Syndicate. She frees Hunt to chase the mysterious criminal mastermind behind the Syndicate, the hissably evil Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).

The original 1960s "Mission: Impossible" CBS series took Cold War espionage drama very seriously, each week crafting a suspenseful blend of political intrigue and spy thriller fantasy as the IMF pulled off impossible plots.

The series took unparalleled risks for TV, especially when the soundtrack went dead-silent for an unprecedented eight minutes of prime-time during a sequence in which the slightest sound would be bad for the IMF agents.

The first "Mission: Impossible" feature, directed by Brian DePalma in 1996, dumped the intelligent part of the intelligence series by going for sheer spectacle. (A helicopter chase through a train tunnel?)

The best of the "MI" franchise remains Brad Bird's 2011 "Ghost Protocol," even though Cruise's Hunt, as in all the "MI" films, possesses a Terminator 1000's ability to fix himself up and always look good. (Daniel Craig goes through 007 thrillers battered, bruised and bloodied as a real fighting spy would.)

"Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny!" as Baldwin's CIA boss burbles McQuarrie's most ostentatious line.

Even James Bond might blush at that description.

IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), left, and his boss (Jeremy Renner) aim to stop a mysterious organization named The Syndicate in “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.”

“Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation”

★ ★ ½

Starring: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris

Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie

Other: A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for partial nudity, violence. 132 minutes

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