The five (and counting) installments in the "Mission: Impossible" film franchise have been successful to varying degrees, but they have all been consistently good in general—not too shabby for a 19-year-old series based on a TV show from the 1960s. The previous entries—Brian De Palma's "Mission: Impossible" (1996); John Woo's "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000); J.J. Abrams' "Mission: Impossible 3" (2006), and Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" (2011)—have had their own visual styles and auteur imprints, allowing each one to feel like a contemporary rejuvenation rather than a progressively stale case of déjà vu. If "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation," written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie (2012's "Jack Reacher"), doesn't quite have that same individualistic touch that assuredly sets it apart, what it does have is a similar confident skillfulness that keeps most of the film humming along from one noteworthy action set-piece to the next. The script, pacing, and use of its returning characters are perhaps a little more standard than what has gone before, and the third act proves distinctly anticlimactic in the shadow of all that it follows, but when it works (which is often), it really cooks.
See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review
