10 Ways The Mission Impossible Movies Keep Getting Better

That idea that these movies have to keep getting bigger could easily be taken too far, eventually getting to the point where Tom Cruise is fighting sharks in space, but this franchise has a great understanding of when to go big and when to scale back.

In Rogue Nation, the climax is much more intimate than what came before. The stakes are still high for the characters, but the actual stunts peak halfway through, and that's totally deliberate. Christopher McQuarrie trusts that the audience will be okay with that, and so the third act can go small while still feeling monumental. In a movie with off-the-wall acts of physical agility, one of the most memorable scenes involves three characters sitting at a table and talking. This conclusion is actually more effective than the bombastic final fight of Ghost Protocol.

It's that sort of decision that steers audiences clear of Mission: Impossible fatigue, as two hours of constant stunts and explosions would bring this series dangerously close to Transformers territory. As great as Ghost Protocol was, the last act did sort of peter out and get silly. Rogue Nation learns from that and knows when to hold back, with smaller sequences that are still impactful because of the way the tension has been built up.