10 Ways The Mission Impossible Movies Keep Getting Better

Surprisingly, the plot of Rogue Nation is the most interesting and complex yet. Christopher McQuarrie has you constantly second guessing everything and trying to work out characters' allegiances, bringing back a sense of paranoia to the series that has been absent from the last few sequels. 

A lot of that comes down to the character of Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), but the Syndicate is an inherently compelling and layered idea. This isn't just a film about a bunch of bad guys trying to blow something up and being thwarted by Tom Cruise shooting a giant blue beam into the sky or hacking into a satellite at the last minute.

There's far more to it than that.

Rogue Nation arguably gets a bit over-complicated at times as a result of this ambition, and there's a small stretch where things have gotten convoluted before the third act brings it back together. Even so, that's a sign of the filmmakers trying too hard, whereas so many sequels just don't seem to be trying hard enough, recycling the same crap over and over and expecting you not to care. Here's a fifth instalment that puts as much effort into its storyline as if it were the first one; they're so far from half-assing it like other franchises this late in the game.