Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Christopher McQuarrie’s 2015 film shuts the agency down and sends Ethan Hunt after the Syndicate without a badge. Two production decisions shaped it. The passage where Cruise clings to a transport plane had a window of only forty eight hours, and the plane took off and landed eight times before a usable shot existed. The underwater break-in was designed as one suspense stretch with no cuts, so Cruise trained with freediving specialist Kirk Krack and has described breath holds of six to six and a half minutes. Paramount also moved the release off 25 December 2015 onto 31 July, clear of the new Star Wars and the new Bond. Two things are worth weighing beforehand. The Vienna State Opera passage ties an assassination to a performance of Turandot, so the countdown is carried by staging and music rather than by anyone explaining a plan, and Puccini’s Nessun dorma enters the score in three separate cues. The film never settles whose side Ilsa Faust is on. Cruise chose Rebecca Ferguson after seeing her in The White Queen, and the emotional weight rests on the newcomer rather than Hunt. A good fit if you want the plane hang and the underwater break in held as long unbroken stretches rather than cut around. A poor fit if you want loyalties declared early.