Like 007 movies and baroque sonnets, Mission Impossible films are subject to strict codification, their point being not to tell a story you don't know, but to retell one you already know in ways you may find entertaining or even inspiring (maybe the same could be said of all art and indeed all human communication, but that would take us to semiotic depths beyond the scope of The MacMahonian…).
Mission Impossible, Rogue Nation is the 5th instalment of the series and the 3d feature directed by Christopher MacQuarrie, who previously directed the passable thrillers Way of the Gunn (2000) and Jack Reacher (2012), although the best of his work so far was as scriptwriter, most notably of The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995).
In Mission Impossible, Rogue Nation Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) gets to cavort from Vienna to Casablanca to London duelling the multiple conflicting loyalties of ex-co-super-worker Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson, playing it hawksian, seen worse, seen better) hideously blackmailed to assist in fiendish plots by former super secret agent and now über-terrorist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, who I recall impersonated Ian Curtis in Michael Winterbottom's 2002 24 Hour Party People, a film much closer to my heart than its cinematic quality might perhaps warrant, but old loves die hard) who is bent on world destruction for approximately the same reasons as all his fictional forbears from Fu Manchu to Goldfinger and beyond.
Lacking the budget or the energy to out-awe the viewer with vertiginous rollercoaster FX or kaleidoscopic plot twists, MacQuarrie plays it relatively safe with a solid and ingenious script (almost sober by the genre's contemporary standards, also penned by MacQuarrie), equipping Ethan with a likeable, slightly goofy but nonetheless valiant sidekick in occasional need of rescuing (Benji Dunn, played by Simon Pegg), understating the latent romantic interest between Ethan and Ilsa and, vindicating once more Hitchcock's dictum to the effect that a movie is only as good as the bad guy is bad, relying substantially on the rodent-face sociopathy of Lane to carry the film through.
The MacMahonian's verdict: enjoyable but forgettable standard franchise.