Connection with the previous post (DAWN OF THE DEAD): Ving Rhames co-starred in both films
RATINGS: IMDB ― 7.4/10, Rotten Tomatoes ― 93%, ME ― 87%
Tom Cruise performed the sequence where Ethan Hunt climbs on the outside of a flying airplane (an Airbus A400M) without the use of visual effects or a stunt double. At times, he was suspended on the aircraft five thousand feet in the air.
Tom Cruise stated in an interview that it was his intention to do the stunt hanging onto the Airbus A400M in a way to outdo himself after the Burj Khalifa climb stunt in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). However, his idea raised objections by the crew due to safety. Being a certified pilot himself, he wanted to get the feel of being out on the wing or on the side of the airplane. A major obstacle to filming would be bird strikes and wind resistance on the runway. To capture the action, a wind-resistant custom frame for the camera was built and mounted onto the left wing of the plane. The other major problem would be keeping Cruise's eyes open in the presence of fast wind and runway particles, so his eye specialist designed a special lens that can cover the entire eyeball. Eight takes of the stunt were filmed. Christopher McQuarrie was very concerned that the actor might panic suddenly, but was assured by Cruise to not stop filming until the stunt had been finished.
Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg performed all their own driving stunts.
Tom Cruise was injured six times during the making of this movie.
Ethan receives his new mission on a vinyl long-playing record. This was one of the first ways of receiving new missions from the Mission: Impossible (1966) television
The original release date was set for December 25, 2015. However, Paramount Pictures pulled forward the release date to July 31 to avoid competition with Spectre (2015) and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015).
Ethan Hunt's code name in the film is "Bravo Echo 1-1", just like in the first Mission: Impossible (1996) movie.
The film directly jumps in from the previous film, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), which ends with Ethan prepping his team to investigate the Syndicate, the mysterious, antagonistic, organization of this film.
RATINGS: IMDB ― 7.4/10, Rotten Tomatoes ― 93%, ME ― 87%
William Brandt: [Brandt and Luther are searching for Ethan and Benji in Morocco in a 4x4 car] I thought you said you could find 'em.
Luther Stickell: I said I could LOCATE 'em. You have to find 'em.
William Brandt: Right.
[Ethan and Benji crash into a nearby car. Luther waves his hand and Ethan waves back]
William Brandt: Found 'em.
[Brandt attempts to follow them just to find out that Ethan and Brandt are being chased by gang of motorcyclers which pass by their car]
William Brandt: It's a high-speed chase and you just had to get the 4x4! Didn't you?
Luther Stickell: Don't blame me. You chose the car!
William Brandt: You just had to have it!
[follows the cyclers]
Luther Stickell: Look at it! Look at how slow you are going. Speed it up!
Luther Stickell: Look at it! Look at how slow you are going. Speed it up!
Jeremy Renner as William Brandt and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell
Trivia (From IMDB):
Tom Cruise performed the sequence where Ethan Hunt climbs on the outside of a flying airplane (an Airbus A400M) without the use of visual effects or a stunt double. At times, he was suspended on the aircraft five thousand feet in the air.
Tom Cruise stated in an interview that it was his intention to do the stunt hanging onto the Airbus A400M in a way to outdo himself after the Burj Khalifa climb stunt in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). However, his idea raised objections by the crew due to safety. Being a certified pilot himself, he wanted to get the feel of being out on the wing or on the side of the airplane. A major obstacle to filming would be bird strikes and wind resistance on the runway. To capture the action, a wind-resistant custom frame for the camera was built and mounted onto the left wing of the plane. The other major problem would be keeping Cruise's eyes open in the presence of fast wind and runway particles, so his eye specialist designed a special lens that can cover the entire eyeball. Eight takes of the stunt were filmed. Christopher McQuarrie was very concerned that the actor might panic suddenly, but was assured by Cruise to not stop filming until the stunt had been finished.
Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg performed all their own driving stunts.
Tom Cruise was injured six times during the making of this movie.
Ethan receives his new mission on a vinyl long-playing record. This was one of the first ways of receiving new missions from the Mission: Impossible (1966) television
The original release date was set for December 25, 2015. However, Paramount Pictures pulled forward the release date to July 31 to avoid competition with Spectre (2015) and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015).
Ethan Hunt's code name in the film is "Bravo Echo 1-1", just like in the first Mission: Impossible (1996) movie.
The film directly jumps in from the previous film, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), which ends with Ethan prepping his team to investigate the Syndicate, the mysterious, antagonistic, organization of this film.
It took ten days to film the ninety-second scene involving Ethan Hunt suspended on the airplane.
The Stunt Coordinator told Simon Pegg that Tom Cruise was going to do all the driving, because he didn't have a driver better than him.
The Syndicate, the covert criminal organization which features in the film, were the regular antagonists in the original Mission: Impossible (1966) television series. They were also mentioned briefly in the final scene of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).
Tom Cruise was struck in the body by a small pebble while filming one of the takes hanging from the plane. Cruise claimed that the impact hurt so badly, he was certain he had been badly injured, and was afraid to look, once the take was over. Fortunately, the pebble merely embedded in his clothing, and he was amazed by how small it was.
First "Mission: Impossible" film in which every member of Ethan Hunt's IMF team is a veteran of at least one previous installment in the franchise.
A brief scene in which Ilsa pauses in the middle of an action sequence to remove her high-heeled shoes was singled out in reviews for its realism, especially in light of the just-released Jurassic World (2015), which was criticized as Bryce Dallas Howard spends much of her action movie literally running in heels from dinosaurs. There was even the idea to highlight the scene in promotional trailers and television spots, but Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie refused, saying that "it wasn't about twisting the knife."
Paula Patton and Maggie Q were set to reprise their roles from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and Mission: Impossible III (2006), respectively. Both actresses dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts.
When training for the underwater scene, Tom Cruise was able to hold his breath underwater for six minutes.
Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames are the only actors to appear in all six films.
Benedict Cumberbatch was the first actor considered to play a villain.
Jeremy Renner still has one more Mission: Impossible movie on his contract after this movie.
The subtitle of the film (Rogue Nation) caused a small conflict between Paramount Pictures and Disney, which announced its Star Wars spin-off, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), at the same time. Both production companies came to an agreement: in exchange for use of the title, Disney wouldn't promote or release any promotional materials of its own film until Paramount's film was released.
The IMAX theatrical release has a Mission: Impossible-style countdown instead of the normal IMAX countdown that features before every movie.
The film was completed at 2:00 A.M. on July 18, 2015, less than two weeks before its release date.
Jessica Chastain was the first choice to play the female lead, but declined, because she did not like the prospect of spending up to six months training for the role. This is the second time after Oblivion (2013), that she turned down a role in a Tom Cruise movie. Rebecca Ferguson was unanimously the second choice, as the studio, Cruise, and Christopher McQuarrie liked her work on The White Queen (2013).
Tom Cruise is only five years younger in this film than Jon Voight was in the first Mission: Impossible (1996) film.
The film's producers originally wanted Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) director Brad Bird to return to helm the follow up film. Bird declined the offer, in order to do Tomorrowland (2015). Christopher McQuarrie was then brought in by the film's producers at Tom Cruise's request.
In an interview with The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, Tom Cruise has stated that the gray suit worn during the opening plane sequence is a direct homage to the plane sequence in North by Northwest (1959), where Roger Thornhill wears a similarly colored suit.
The main operatic theme in this film is called "Nessun Dorma", from the opera Turandot, by Giacomo Puccini, the same opera featured in the assassination scene. It also unofficially becomes Ilsa's theme in the film, appearing several times in scenes between her and Ethan, and is incorporated into the final musical cue on the soundtrack "Finale and Curtain Call" by Joe Kraemer (before evolving into the classical Mission: Impossible theme).
Tom Cruise was attached to star as Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), but dropped out in order to do this film.
All good guys in the movie drive BMW cars (except for the Morocco scene, where William Brandt and Luther Stickell are driving a Land Rover Defender). The bad guys drive either Audis, Mercedes, Range Rovers, or Cheverolet Suburbans. Except for the motorcycle chase scene, all motorcycles are BMW S1000RRs.
Each installment is helmed by different directors, namely Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and Christopher McQuarrie for the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth films, respectively.
The terminal in the underwater safe that Ethan needs to access is 108. This number has cropped up in most Bad Robot productions, perhaps most famously in Lost (2004), where it was the sum of the infamous number sequence (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42).
First Mission: Impossible film not to feature the "jump and hang" scene made famous in Mission: Impossible (1996). Ethan Hunt would do this in Mission: Impossible II (2000) and Mission: Impossible III (2006), whilst Brandt performed this near the end of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).
Although most of the "Mission: Impossible" films have avoided references to their predecessors in the series, this one either directly or indirectly references all four of them (aside from each of Ethan's IMF team members having been in at least one earlier film). When Hunley and Brandt are speaking to a U.S. Senate subcommittee, Hunley mentions the IMF's break-in at the C.I.A.'s Langley headquarters Mission: Impossible (1996) as well as the destruction of the Kremlin from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). In the following scene, where Ethan is prepped for what appears to be a grisly torture, his rescuer Ilsa palms a handcuff key attached to a rabbit's foot, an apparent reference to the MacGuffin in Mission: Impossible III (2006), which was never shown on-screen, but referred to as the Rabbit's Foot. Additionally, the motorcycle chase in this film is reminiscent of the one in Mission: Impossible II (2000). Furthermore, the duplication of the thumb drive by Benji and subsequent theft of it by Ilsa is reminiscent of the scene in Mission: Impossible when Ethan steals the NOC list from Langley. Finally, a major scene in the film's third act is set inside a London train station. The first movie included a long scene filmed at London's Liverpool Street Station. Additionally, Hunley mentions during the Senate hearing, that the I.M.F. is currently without a Secretary, referencing the events of Ghost Protocol, where the Secretary (Tom Wilkinson) was killed when Russian security forces opened fire on his car, while looking for Hunt.
The structure Ethan Hunt grabs hold of when the aircraft he jumps on takes off, is a "deployable baffle". It is intended to give paratroops an instant to get clear of the massive aircraft when jumping before they're caught in the Jetstream. However, it does not have holes like the ones seen in the movie, so in reality, there would be nothing, to which to hold on.
The film's plot was very difficult to develop. Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrieadmitted that the film didn't have a script when it went into production. They just had the major action sequences planned out when they started filming. For instance, the underwater heist sequence was outlined from beginning to end, but what Ethan was actually stealing was unknown while they were filming it. Some scenes of important exposition were written while they were being filmed. Drew Pearce was originally hired to pen the script, when the film was announced in August 2013, but was replaced by Will Staples in May of 2014. Staples was then let go when production began that August and Christopher McQuarrie took up writing duties while filming, with the previous scripts seemingly being largely ignored, or thrown out. Production had to be halted in February 2015, so that McQuarrie and Cruise could re-work the film's story and ending. It is unknown how much Pearce and Staples had written for the film, or how much of their content made it into the final film, but Pearce was acknowledged for the story, and McQuarrie is credited as the Screenwriter.
The aircraft Ethan Hunt jumps on at the beginning of the movie is an Airbus A400M. Intended to replace the C-130 Hercules, only a dozen of these machines had been delivered at the time of filming, and a crash during a test flight in Spain, killing the entire crew, set the program back even further.
During the opening theme sequence where pieces of the mission to come are shown, you can see a very quick shot of the black folio with gold lettering (Impossible Mission Force) used in the original series, when the team was selected at the beginning of every episode.
Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the Mission: Impossible (1966) theme, also created the orchestral arrangements for the "Three Tenors" concerts that made "Nessun Dorma" (featured in this film) an international pop culture phenomenon.
Second "Mission: Impossible" film in a row to feature prominent BMW product placement, in particular the 2016 BMW 3-series.
The pictures of an Audi from a fatal car crash in Turkey, is actually the car of the world champion Norwegian skier Petter Northug. DUI resulted in leaving his Audi in bad shape, but both Northug and the other person in the car only suffered minor injuries. Northug ran from the scene to his house nearby, where he was later arrested, and later convicted for DUI.
This is the fourth Tom Cruise movie written and/or directed by Christopher McQuarrie.The first three were Valkyrie (2008), Jack Reacher (2012), and Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
The first film release featuring footage from Arri's new 6.5K Alexa 65 camera, which was used to shoot the underwater sequence. Other films, such as The Revenant (2015), Snowden (2016), and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), shot with the camera first, but were released later.
The first film in the franchise, where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the primary antagonist (Sean Harris) share no physical contact whatsoever.
The writing credits in early promotional material read: "Written by Christopher McQuarrie", but McQuarrie received sole screenplay credit and shared story credit with Drew Pearce following an arbitration conducted by the Writers Guild of America.
The album that Tom Cruise and Hermione Corfield discuss in the record shop is Thelonious Monk's 1957 album "Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane", on the Riverside label (which features Monk, Coltrane, and Shadow Wilson on drums).
The video game Benji plays is Halo 5: Guardians (2015), the seventh game of the HALO series. HALO 5 was scheduled for release in October 2015, three months after the release of the movie.
Joe Kraemer was hired to write a score for the film. He also had worked with Tom Cruiseand Christopher McQuarrie in Jack Reacher (2012).
There are many product placements from Microsoft, such as an XBOX One with Halo, several Windows Phones and Microsoft Surface Tablets.
The A400M airplane that was used in the movie was built in Seville, Spain, and brought specially to the UK for the filming. Coincidentally, the actor who plays the A400M pilot, Mateo Rufino, is also originally from that town.
This is the second time since 2006, both the James Bond film franchise and the Mission: Impossible movie franchises have been released in the same year. Mission: Impossible III(2006) and Casino Royale (2006) were released the same year, and now, Spectre (2015) and this movie were released in 2015. In 2006 and 2015, the actors who portray the lead character in each franchise are still the same: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, and Daniel Craig as James Bond.
When Stickell locates Ilsa Faust, a sort of profile appears just later, showing her as disavowed. The birth date (10/19/1983), the eyes shade (blue) and the height (5'7") match those of Rebecca Ferguson. Her shirt has stamped a coat of arms with the motto from the Order of the Garter.
Michael Giacchino didn't return to compose this film, due to scheduling conflicts with Jurassic World (2015).
The A400M scenes were shot at RAF Wittering in the UK.
When Ethan Hunt calls the I.M.F. early on in the movie, he uses the code Bravo Echo One One (or BE11) which is a mirror image of 1138, the number made famous as a recurring McGuffin in George Lucas' movies. This is the same code Ethan uses in the first Mission: Impossible (1996) movie when he calls Kittridge after the Prague mission.
Second "Mission: Impossible" film to be released in IMAX. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) being the first. Although, "Ghost Protocol" had scenes filmed with IMAX cameras, "Rogue Nation" does not.
Archvillain Solomon Lane wears a grey Nehru dress coat, a classic trademark of James Bond arch nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who headed up SPECTRE, a similar evil organization to the Syndicate. A version of Blofeld's group in Spectre (2015) was released the same year as this film.
This is Tom Cruise's and Alec Baldwin's second movie together. The first one being Rock of Ages (2012).
At the opening of the Ball Scene, in the exterior of Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, a silver Aston Martin DB5 is clearly visible parked in the front spots. Given how rare this car is, and how it stands out amongst all the other dark colored automobiles, this could be a fun reference to James Bond, as besides the spy genre of the Mission: Impossible saga, British Intelligence is also part of the plot in this movie, and active in that very same scene. Another interesting coincidence, is that in the same year of filming Rogue Nation, the same filming location was announced for the 007 film Spectre (2015).
The second spy film to feature a secret agent fighting backstage during an opera in Austria. The first was Quantum of Solace (2008) during a performance of Tosca at the Bregenz Lake stage.
In Vienna, when Ethan and Ilsa slide down the roof, Ethan almost tips over, but Ilsa holds him back. The sliding off the roof is an homage to Mission: Impossible III (2006), when Ethan slides down the roof in Shanghai and almost falls over.
When Ethan and Ilsa meet in the train station, the concourse used for filming is not a train station, but the concourse at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London. The images of trains and platforms were inserted where the large doors to exhibition halls are located.
FRANCHISE TRADEMARK: Almost every movie in the series has a scene with Ethan Hunt descending by wires in some form: during the break-in scenes of the first three movies, he is suspended by wires, and in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) he ties himself to a fire hose in order to climb down the skyscraper. Although Hunt isn't suspended by wires in this movie, he does use a rope to slide down from the Vienna Opera House.
Alec Baldwin plays the head of the C.I.A. Baldwin was also the first actor to play Jack Ryan. In the movies made of Tom Clancy's book series, Ryan eventually becomes Deputy Director of the C.I.A.
This movie was first released in the same 2015 year as several other spy, espionage, intelligence, and secret agent movies, with a couple of them also comedies. The movies include Spy (2015) (a Bond spoof); Spectre (2015); Sicario (2015) (F.B.I.; which has a title which is almost an anagram of Ian Fleming's Risico (1960) James Bond short-story, bar the letter "A"); Survivor (2015) starring Pierce Brosnan; Black Mass (2015) (F.B.I.); Mortdecai (2015) (has an MI5 Agent lead character); Queen of the Desert (2015) (central character was a World War I attaché to the British Secret Service); the Bondian Furious 7(2015); Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) (which was shot in three of the same countries as Spectre (2015): Austria, England, and Morocco); Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies (2015) (a cold war espionage thriller); The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) (Ian Fleming was an original co-Creator), MI-5 (2015) a.k.a. "MI-5"; and even Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) (a Bondesque homage), a 2014 film, but which was mostly widely theatrically released in 2015. Also in theaters in 2015, from 2014, was Pierce Brosnanand Quantum of Solace (2008)'s Olga Kurylenko in The November Man (2014); and the heavily Oscar nominated World War II espionage film, The Imitation Game (2014). First released in 2014 were 3 Days to Kill (2014) and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014).
Benji is the first character who wasn't in the original Mission: Impossible (1996) to appear in a majority of the films (four out of the six). Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames are the only actors to have appeared in them all.
In the original Mission: Impossible, the IMF is answerable only to the US Secretary of State. So when Jeremy Renner says "Welcome to the IMF, Mr. Secretary," to Alec Baldwin, there's a very good chance that Baldwin's character is the new Secretary of State.
According to Greg Morris, who portrayed Barney in the original Mission Impossible television series, mostly all of the gadgets actually worked in the original series, except the masks. Now most of the gadgets are purely fiction and the masks are closer to reality.
The wristwatch that Simon Pegg wears in this movie, is a Tissot T-Touch Expert Solar.
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When Ethan and Ilsa are talking in the train station and Ilsa suggests they run away together, she tries to justify this reasoning by claiming there will always be people like the villain, Solomon Lane, that will need to be stopped. This is reminiscent of a line Billy Crudup (John Musgrave) from Mission: Impossible III (2006) said to Ethan, when he discusses how the primary antagonist, Owen Davian (played by Philip Seymour Hoffmanis like "a weed, and that if he was cut out, two more like him will spring up the next day."
Turandot was Composer Giacomo Puccini's final opera. Franco Alfano completed the last two scenes after Puccini's death.
Tom Cruise has a shot where he runs in profile. It has become something of a trademark.
Maricel Pagulayan's name shows up three times in the film. She is credited as an Associate Producer, the Visual Effects Supervisor, and one of the Syndicate's bank on the encrypted drive, is the fictitious "Bank of Pagulayan".
Michelle Monaghan does not return in this film as Ethan's wife.
Tom Hollander portrays the British Prime Minister here, after playing an incompetent low level British minister in In the Loop (2009).
In the original Mission: Impossible series, the Syndicate was basically a code name for American Gangsters.
When Ethan and Benji get to Morocco, the camera shoots their vehicle from behind, displaying the desert, pans up, and cuts. In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), when the team arrives in Dubai, the camera also shoots their vehicle from behind, displaying the desert, pans up, and cuts.
Most cars used by characters in the movie are BMW's, as a result of product placement. In one scene, however, the bad guys drive a Mercedes, and a prominent frontal shot of the car, shows it to be debadged.
The tablet that Ilsa and Huntley use is a Microsoft Surface, and the phone that most of the characters use is a Nokia Lumia 930.
Károly Rékasi, the Hungarian voice of Ethan Hunt in the previous Mission: Impossible movies, was unable to dub this movie after being injured and hospitalized after a motorcycle accident in late June 2015. Tamás Széles took over his place. He's the main Hungarian voice for Ben Affleck, rather than Tom Cruise.
The English spy thriller "Spooks: The Greater Good" (MI-5 (2015)) was released in the U.S. on December 4, 2015, about a month after Spectre (2015), which debuted stateside on November 6, 2015. 2015 also saw the release of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation(2015), it having an informal title of "MI5", while part of Spectre (2015)'s storyline involves MI5.
The trailer for this film was released on March 23. Michelle Monaghan and Keri Russellappeared in earlier Mission: Impossible movies, and also share the same birthday, March 23.
Alec Baldwin plays C.I.A. Chief Hunley, who in a set-up, is credited with saving the British Prime Minister. In The Hunt for Red October (1990), he played C.I.A. analyst Jack Ryan. Ryan saved several members of the British Royal family from an abduction attempt in Patriot Games (1992).
In Mission: Impossible (1996), Tom Cruise used a modified stick of gum to blow up a restaurant fish tank. In this film, there is a close-up shot of Simon Pegg sticking a piece of gum on his desktop computer's screen, temporarily obscuring the C.I.A. logo.
Up until this movie, there was an odd pattern that the Mission: Impossible films followed. In the odd numbered Mission: Impossible films (the first and third films), Ethan had shorter hair than in the even numbered films Mission: Impossible II (2000) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). However, in this film, Ethan has longer hair than in Mission: Impossible (1996) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
The motorcycle chase which Ethan wears sunglasses is a nod to the motorcycle chase in Mission: Impossible II (2000), which Ethan also wore sunglasses.
Second Mission: Impossible film which Ethan Hunt goes to London, England. Ethan Hunt was also in London in Mission: Impossible (1996).
This is the second time that Saif Al-Warith has acted alongside Rebecca Ferguson as her antagonist. They first appeared in The Red Tent (2014), in which he played her villainous brother Simon.
At the time of the movie's release, the Chancellor of Austria was Werner Faymann, and there was never an attempt on his life.
Second film in the Mission: Impossible film franchise to have a motorcycle chase scene. The first was Mission: Impossible II (2000). In both motorcycle chase sequences, Ethan wears sunglasses.
The operator who answers the phone when Ethan first calls in from London looks and sounds like Eugene Kittridge from Mission: Impossible (1996).
The headset that Solomon Lane uses towards the end of the movie is a Plantronics Voyager Legend.
This film and Edge of Tomorrow (2014) are set in London.
Spoilers ―
The first Mission: Impossible film, where the main villain is not killed.
The language spoken by Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Janik Vinter (Jens Hultén) in the beginning and the end of the movie is Swedish. Both cast members' country of origin is Sweden.
This is the second time that Ethan Hunt "dies" in the series, when he drowns in the underwater safe. The first time was in Mission: Impossible III (2006), where he was electrocuted, in order to deactivate the micro-bomb in his head. In both instances, he was successfully revived afterwards.
When Ethan Hunt walks into the record store to accept his next mission, the main antagonist can be seen sitting in the background waiting for him.
Benji Dunn mentioned in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) that he wanted to wear a face mask. Although he appears to wear one in this movie, that scene turns out to be only a hypothetical outcome of his mission. However, he actually does. A deleted scene set at C.I.A. Headquarters in Langley (when Benji was benched), has him impersonating Hunley with a face mask, and engaging the real Hunley in a cat-and-mouse game. The scene was cut, as it was judged too confusing in previews.
This is the first film in the series where a member of Ethan's team (Benji) is kidnapped by the primary antagonist, although Ethan himself is kidnapped in Mission: Impossible III(2006). In fact, Ethan's insistence on saving Benji in this film, could be seen as him returning a favor from Mission: Impossible III (2006). In that film, Benji is the only character to help Ethan save his kidnapped wife.
Rebecca Ferguson bears a slight resemblance to Ingrid Bergman. Ferguson's character in this film is named Ilsa Faust, this is a reference to Bergman's character, Ilsa Lund from Casablanca (1942), a European star-crossed lover who falls for an American, and the German legend Faust, where the title character makes an ill-fated deal with the devil. Both characters foreshadow Ilsa Faust's role in the film. This movie also has a sequence set in Casablanca, with Ferguson in it. Tom Cruise's first celebrity crush was Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946).
This is the only Mission: Impossible film to date, where Ethan Hunt is not in the last scene of the movie.
The poem the British Prime Minister reads off to activate the Syndicate are lines taken from the Rudyard Kipling poem, "If-".
Jeremy Renner has the first and last lines in the film.
Sean Harris was very hesitant in accepting the role of Solomon Lane, because he felt that he remains not well known on the big screen, but more on the television circuit. The reason he took the role, was because of an exchange scene originally set at the climax where Solomon and Ethan talk about man's loss of faith. This scene was eventually cut after previews, as it was alluded earlier, and it didn't match the subsequent revised scenes after that.
Like Mission: Impossible (1996), Mission: Impossible III (2006), and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), this film sees Ethan Hunt once again forced to go on the run. Mission: Impossible II (2000) is the only film in the franchise where Ethan Hunt doesn't go on the run, and actually goes on a mission assigned to him by I.M.F.
This is the first film in the series to adapt a primary antagonist from the original Mission: Impossible (1966) television show (although the Jim Phelps character turned out to be the antagonist of Mission: Impossible (1996), he was not an antagonist in the original series).
Body Count: thirty-six.
When Ethan Hunt finds Ilsa and Benji at the restaurant, Benji is strapped with a timed bomb. He is repeating what the villain, Lane, is wanting to say to Hunt through an earpiece. This is reminiscent of the first season finale of Sherlock (2010), where the villain, Moriarty, speaks to Sherlock through his victims who are strapped to timed bombs and fitted with earpieces. Both scenes are set in London.
After Ethan Hunt tranquilizes the British Prime Minister during the charity auction in the third act of the film, C.I.A. Director Alan Hunley tells him that he may have just set relations between the United States and the United Kingdom "back to the American Revolution." Tom Hollander, who portrays the Prime Minister, also portrayed King George III (the British monarch during the American Revolution) in John Adams (2008).
Ethan stops the attempt on the Austrian Chancellor's life during the opera Turandot. This is when he meets Ilsa properly for the first time, and they escape together. During their goodbye scene the song Nessun Dorma plays. This piece of music is from the opera Turandot, and it is famous as the song performed by Paul Potts during his audition in Britain's Got Talent (2007), and in signature performances by opera great Luciano Pavarotti.
The scene where Ethan chases Ilsa on motorcycle after she steals the thumb drive is similar to the barrel roll stunt in Casino Royale (2006). Bond has been chasing villains, and he abruptly brakes when he sees Vesper Lynd in the road, and the Astin Martin DBS is destroyed. In this film, when Ethan turns a corner and sees Ilsa standing in the road, forcing him to brake and lose control of his motorcycle.
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Alec Baldwin's character, when talking to Brandt, describes Ethan Hunt as "both arsonist and fireman". Alec's brother, William Baldwin, appeared in Backdraft (1991), where an arsonist was later identified as a fireman.
The Stunt Coordinator told Simon Pegg that Tom Cruise was going to do all the driving, because he didn't have a driver better than him.
The Syndicate, the covert criminal organization which features in the film, were the regular antagonists in the original Mission: Impossible (1966) television series. They were also mentioned briefly in the final scene of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).
Tom Cruise was struck in the body by a small pebble while filming one of the takes hanging from the plane. Cruise claimed that the impact hurt so badly, he was certain he had been badly injured, and was afraid to look, once the take was over. Fortunately, the pebble merely embedded in his clothing, and he was amazed by how small it was.
First "Mission: Impossible" film in which every member of Ethan Hunt's IMF team is a veteran of at least one previous installment in the franchise.
A brief scene in which Ilsa pauses in the middle of an action sequence to remove her high-heeled shoes was singled out in reviews for its realism, especially in light of the just-released Jurassic World (2015), which was criticized as Bryce Dallas Howard spends much of her action movie literally running in heels from dinosaurs. There was even the idea to highlight the scene in promotional trailers and television spots, but Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie refused, saying that "it wasn't about twisting the knife."
Paula Patton and Maggie Q were set to reprise their roles from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and Mission: Impossible III (2006), respectively. Both actresses dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts.
When training for the underwater scene, Tom Cruise was able to hold his breath underwater for six minutes.
Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames are the only actors to appear in all six films.
Benedict Cumberbatch was the first actor considered to play a villain.
Jeremy Renner still has one more Mission: Impossible movie on his contract after this movie.
The subtitle of the film (Rogue Nation) caused a small conflict between Paramount Pictures and Disney, which announced its Star Wars spin-off, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), at the same time. Both production companies came to an agreement: in exchange for use of the title, Disney wouldn't promote or release any promotional materials of its own film until Paramount's film was released.
The IMAX theatrical release has a Mission: Impossible-style countdown instead of the normal IMAX countdown that features before every movie.
The film was completed at 2:00 A.M. on July 18, 2015, less than two weeks before its release date.
Jessica Chastain was the first choice to play the female lead, but declined, because she did not like the prospect of spending up to six months training for the role. This is the second time after Oblivion (2013), that she turned down a role in a Tom Cruise movie. Rebecca Ferguson was unanimously the second choice, as the studio, Cruise, and Christopher McQuarrie liked her work on The White Queen (2013).
Tom Cruise is only five years younger in this film than Jon Voight was in the first Mission: Impossible (1996) film.
The film's producers originally wanted Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) director Brad Bird to return to helm the follow up film. Bird declined the offer, in order to do Tomorrowland (2015). Christopher McQuarrie was then brought in by the film's producers at Tom Cruise's request.
In an interview with The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, Tom Cruise has stated that the gray suit worn during the opening plane sequence is a direct homage to the plane sequence in North by Northwest (1959), where Roger Thornhill wears a similarly colored suit.
The main operatic theme in this film is called "Nessun Dorma", from the opera Turandot, by Giacomo Puccini, the same opera featured in the assassination scene. It also unofficially becomes Ilsa's theme in the film, appearing several times in scenes between her and Ethan, and is incorporated into the final musical cue on the soundtrack "Finale and Curtain Call" by Joe Kraemer (before evolving into the classical Mission: Impossible theme).
Tom Cruise was attached to star as Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), but dropped out in order to do this film.
All good guys in the movie drive BMW cars (except for the Morocco scene, where William Brandt and Luther Stickell are driving a Land Rover Defender). The bad guys drive either Audis, Mercedes, Range Rovers, or Cheverolet Suburbans. Except for the motorcycle chase scene, all motorcycles are BMW S1000RRs.
Each installment is helmed by different directors, namely Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and Christopher McQuarrie for the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth films, respectively.
The terminal in the underwater safe that Ethan needs to access is 108. This number has cropped up in most Bad Robot productions, perhaps most famously in Lost (2004), where it was the sum of the infamous number sequence (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42).
First Mission: Impossible film not to feature the "jump and hang" scene made famous in Mission: Impossible (1996). Ethan Hunt would do this in Mission: Impossible II (2000) and Mission: Impossible III (2006), whilst Brandt performed this near the end of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).
Although most of the "Mission: Impossible" films have avoided references to their predecessors in the series, this one either directly or indirectly references all four of them (aside from each of Ethan's IMF team members having been in at least one earlier film). When Hunley and Brandt are speaking to a U.S. Senate subcommittee, Hunley mentions the IMF's break-in at the C.I.A.'s Langley headquarters Mission: Impossible (1996) as well as the destruction of the Kremlin from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). In the following scene, where Ethan is prepped for what appears to be a grisly torture, his rescuer Ilsa palms a handcuff key attached to a rabbit's foot, an apparent reference to the MacGuffin in Mission: Impossible III (2006), which was never shown on-screen, but referred to as the Rabbit's Foot. Additionally, the motorcycle chase in this film is reminiscent of the one in Mission: Impossible II (2000). Furthermore, the duplication of the thumb drive by Benji and subsequent theft of it by Ilsa is reminiscent of the scene in Mission: Impossible when Ethan steals the NOC list from Langley. Finally, a major scene in the film's third act is set inside a London train station. The first movie included a long scene filmed at London's Liverpool Street Station. Additionally, Hunley mentions during the Senate hearing, that the I.M.F. is currently without a Secretary, referencing the events of Ghost Protocol, where the Secretary (Tom Wilkinson) was killed when Russian security forces opened fire on his car, while looking for Hunt.
The structure Ethan Hunt grabs hold of when the aircraft he jumps on takes off, is a "deployable baffle". It is intended to give paratroops an instant to get clear of the massive aircraft when jumping before they're caught in the Jetstream. However, it does not have holes like the ones seen in the movie, so in reality, there would be nothing, to which to hold on.
The film's plot was very difficult to develop. Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrieadmitted that the film didn't have a script when it went into production. They just had the major action sequences planned out when they started filming. For instance, the underwater heist sequence was outlined from beginning to end, but what Ethan was actually stealing was unknown while they were filming it. Some scenes of important exposition were written while they were being filmed. Drew Pearce was originally hired to pen the script, when the film was announced in August 2013, but was replaced by Will Staples in May of 2014. Staples was then let go when production began that August and Christopher McQuarrie took up writing duties while filming, with the previous scripts seemingly being largely ignored, or thrown out. Production had to be halted in February 2015, so that McQuarrie and Cruise could re-work the film's story and ending. It is unknown how much Pearce and Staples had written for the film, or how much of their content made it into the final film, but Pearce was acknowledged for the story, and McQuarrie is credited as the Screenwriter.
The aircraft Ethan Hunt jumps on at the beginning of the movie is an Airbus A400M. Intended to replace the C-130 Hercules, only a dozen of these machines had been delivered at the time of filming, and a crash during a test flight in Spain, killing the entire crew, set the program back even further.
During the opening theme sequence where pieces of the mission to come are shown, you can see a very quick shot of the black folio with gold lettering (Impossible Mission Force) used in the original series, when the team was selected at the beginning of every episode.
Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the Mission: Impossible (1966) theme, also created the orchestral arrangements for the "Three Tenors" concerts that made "Nessun Dorma" (featured in this film) an international pop culture phenomenon.
Second "Mission: Impossible" film in a row to feature prominent BMW product placement, in particular the 2016 BMW 3-series.
The pictures of an Audi from a fatal car crash in Turkey, is actually the car of the world champion Norwegian skier Petter Northug. DUI resulted in leaving his Audi in bad shape, but both Northug and the other person in the car only suffered minor injuries. Northug ran from the scene to his house nearby, where he was later arrested, and later convicted for DUI.
This is the fourth Tom Cruise movie written and/or directed by Christopher McQuarrie.The first three were Valkyrie (2008), Jack Reacher (2012), and Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
The first film release featuring footage from Arri's new 6.5K Alexa 65 camera, which was used to shoot the underwater sequence. Other films, such as The Revenant (2015), Snowden (2016), and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), shot with the camera first, but were released later.
The first film in the franchise, where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the primary antagonist (Sean Harris) share no physical contact whatsoever.
The writing credits in early promotional material read: "Written by Christopher McQuarrie", but McQuarrie received sole screenplay credit and shared story credit with Drew Pearce following an arbitration conducted by the Writers Guild of America.
The album that Tom Cruise and Hermione Corfield discuss in the record shop is Thelonious Monk's 1957 album "Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane", on the Riverside label (which features Monk, Coltrane, and Shadow Wilson on drums).
The video game Benji plays is Halo 5: Guardians (2015), the seventh game of the HALO series. HALO 5 was scheduled for release in October 2015, three months after the release of the movie.
Joe Kraemer was hired to write a score for the film. He also had worked with Tom Cruiseand Christopher McQuarrie in Jack Reacher (2012).
There are many product placements from Microsoft, such as an XBOX One with Halo, several Windows Phones and Microsoft Surface Tablets.
The A400M airplane that was used in the movie was built in Seville, Spain, and brought specially to the UK for the filming. Coincidentally, the actor who plays the A400M pilot, Mateo Rufino, is also originally from that town.
This is the second time since 2006, both the James Bond film franchise and the Mission: Impossible movie franchises have been released in the same year. Mission: Impossible III(2006) and Casino Royale (2006) were released the same year, and now, Spectre (2015) and this movie were released in 2015. In 2006 and 2015, the actors who portray the lead character in each franchise are still the same: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, and Daniel Craig as James Bond.
When Stickell locates Ilsa Faust, a sort of profile appears just later, showing her as disavowed. The birth date (10/19/1983), the eyes shade (blue) and the height (5'7") match those of Rebecca Ferguson. Her shirt has stamped a coat of arms with the motto from the Order of the Garter.
Michael Giacchino didn't return to compose this film, due to scheduling conflicts with Jurassic World (2015).
The A400M scenes were shot at RAF Wittering in the UK.
When Ethan Hunt calls the I.M.F. early on in the movie, he uses the code Bravo Echo One One (or BE11) which is a mirror image of 1138, the number made famous as a recurring McGuffin in George Lucas' movies. This is the same code Ethan uses in the first Mission: Impossible (1996) movie when he calls Kittridge after the Prague mission.
Second "Mission: Impossible" film to be released in IMAX. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) being the first. Although, "Ghost Protocol" had scenes filmed with IMAX cameras, "Rogue Nation" does not.
Archvillain Solomon Lane wears a grey Nehru dress coat, a classic trademark of James Bond arch nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who headed up SPECTRE, a similar evil organization to the Syndicate. A version of Blofeld's group in Spectre (2015) was released the same year as this film.
This is Tom Cruise's and Alec Baldwin's second movie together. The first one being Rock of Ages (2012).
At the opening of the Ball Scene, in the exterior of Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, a silver Aston Martin DB5 is clearly visible parked in the front spots. Given how rare this car is, and how it stands out amongst all the other dark colored automobiles, this could be a fun reference to James Bond, as besides the spy genre of the Mission: Impossible saga, British Intelligence is also part of the plot in this movie, and active in that very same scene. Another interesting coincidence, is that in the same year of filming Rogue Nation, the same filming location was announced for the 007 film Spectre (2015).
The second spy film to feature a secret agent fighting backstage during an opera in Austria. The first was Quantum of Solace (2008) during a performance of Tosca at the Bregenz Lake stage.
In Vienna, when Ethan and Ilsa slide down the roof, Ethan almost tips over, but Ilsa holds him back. The sliding off the roof is an homage to Mission: Impossible III (2006), when Ethan slides down the roof in Shanghai and almost falls over.
When Ethan and Ilsa meet in the train station, the concourse used for filming is not a train station, but the concourse at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London. The images of trains and platforms were inserted where the large doors to exhibition halls are located.
FRANCHISE TRADEMARK: Almost every movie in the series has a scene with Ethan Hunt descending by wires in some form: during the break-in scenes of the first three movies, he is suspended by wires, and in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) he ties himself to a fire hose in order to climb down the skyscraper. Although Hunt isn't suspended by wires in this movie, he does use a rope to slide down from the Vienna Opera House.
Alec Baldwin plays the head of the C.I.A. Baldwin was also the first actor to play Jack Ryan. In the movies made of Tom Clancy's book series, Ryan eventually becomes Deputy Director of the C.I.A.
This movie was first released in the same 2015 year as several other spy, espionage, intelligence, and secret agent movies, with a couple of them also comedies. The movies include Spy (2015) (a Bond spoof); Spectre (2015); Sicario (2015) (F.B.I.; which has a title which is almost an anagram of Ian Fleming's Risico (1960) James Bond short-story, bar the letter "A"); Survivor (2015) starring Pierce Brosnan; Black Mass (2015) (F.B.I.); Mortdecai (2015) (has an MI5 Agent lead character); Queen of the Desert (2015) (central character was a World War I attaché to the British Secret Service); the Bondian Furious 7(2015); Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) (which was shot in three of the same countries as Spectre (2015): Austria, England, and Morocco); Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies (2015) (a cold war espionage thriller); The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) (Ian Fleming was an original co-Creator), MI-5 (2015) a.k.a. "MI-5"; and even Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) (a Bondesque homage), a 2014 film, but which was mostly widely theatrically released in 2015. Also in theaters in 2015, from 2014, was Pierce Brosnanand Quantum of Solace (2008)'s Olga Kurylenko in The November Man (2014); and the heavily Oscar nominated World War II espionage film, The Imitation Game (2014). First released in 2014 were 3 Days to Kill (2014) and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014).
Benji is the first character who wasn't in the original Mission: Impossible (1996) to appear in a majority of the films (four out of the six). Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames are the only actors to have appeared in them all.
In the original Mission: Impossible, the IMF is answerable only to the US Secretary of State. So when Jeremy Renner says "Welcome to the IMF, Mr. Secretary," to Alec Baldwin, there's a very good chance that Baldwin's character is the new Secretary of State.
According to Greg Morris, who portrayed Barney in the original Mission Impossible television series, mostly all of the gadgets actually worked in the original series, except the masks. Now most of the gadgets are purely fiction and the masks are closer to reality.
The wristwatch that Simon Pegg wears in this movie, is a Tissot T-Touch Expert Solar.
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When Ethan and Ilsa are talking in the train station and Ilsa suggests they run away together, she tries to justify this reasoning by claiming there will always be people like the villain, Solomon Lane, that will need to be stopped. This is reminiscent of a line Billy Crudup (John Musgrave) from Mission: Impossible III (2006) said to Ethan, when he discusses how the primary antagonist, Owen Davian (played by Philip Seymour Hoffmanis like "a weed, and that if he was cut out, two more like him will spring up the next day."
Turandot was Composer Giacomo Puccini's final opera. Franco Alfano completed the last two scenes after Puccini's death.
Tom Cruise has a shot where he runs in profile. It has become something of a trademark.
Maricel Pagulayan's name shows up three times in the film. She is credited as an Associate Producer, the Visual Effects Supervisor, and one of the Syndicate's bank on the encrypted drive, is the fictitious "Bank of Pagulayan".
Michelle Monaghan does not return in this film as Ethan's wife.
Tom Hollander portrays the British Prime Minister here, after playing an incompetent low level British minister in In the Loop (2009).
In the original Mission: Impossible series, the Syndicate was basically a code name for American Gangsters.
When Ethan and Benji get to Morocco, the camera shoots their vehicle from behind, displaying the desert, pans up, and cuts. In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), when the team arrives in Dubai, the camera also shoots their vehicle from behind, displaying the desert, pans up, and cuts.
Most cars used by characters in the movie are BMW's, as a result of product placement. In one scene, however, the bad guys drive a Mercedes, and a prominent frontal shot of the car, shows it to be debadged.
The tablet that Ilsa and Huntley use is a Microsoft Surface, and the phone that most of the characters use is a Nokia Lumia 930.
Károly Rékasi, the Hungarian voice of Ethan Hunt in the previous Mission: Impossible movies, was unable to dub this movie after being injured and hospitalized after a motorcycle accident in late June 2015. Tamás Széles took over his place. He's the main Hungarian voice for Ben Affleck, rather than Tom Cruise.
The English spy thriller "Spooks: The Greater Good" (MI-5 (2015)) was released in the U.S. on December 4, 2015, about a month after Spectre (2015), which debuted stateside on November 6, 2015. 2015 also saw the release of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation(2015), it having an informal title of "MI5", while part of Spectre (2015)'s storyline involves MI5.
The trailer for this film was released on March 23. Michelle Monaghan and Keri Russellappeared in earlier Mission: Impossible movies, and also share the same birthday, March 23.
Alec Baldwin plays C.I.A. Chief Hunley, who in a set-up, is credited with saving the British Prime Minister. In The Hunt for Red October (1990), he played C.I.A. analyst Jack Ryan. Ryan saved several members of the British Royal family from an abduction attempt in Patriot Games (1992).
In Mission: Impossible (1996), Tom Cruise used a modified stick of gum to blow up a restaurant fish tank. In this film, there is a close-up shot of Simon Pegg sticking a piece of gum on his desktop computer's screen, temporarily obscuring the C.I.A. logo.
Up until this movie, there was an odd pattern that the Mission: Impossible films followed. In the odd numbered Mission: Impossible films (the first and third films), Ethan had shorter hair than in the even numbered films Mission: Impossible II (2000) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). However, in this film, Ethan has longer hair than in Mission: Impossible (1996) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
The motorcycle chase which Ethan wears sunglasses is a nod to the motorcycle chase in Mission: Impossible II (2000), which Ethan also wore sunglasses.
Second Mission: Impossible film which Ethan Hunt goes to London, England. Ethan Hunt was also in London in Mission: Impossible (1996).
This is the second time that Saif Al-Warith has acted alongside Rebecca Ferguson as her antagonist. They first appeared in The Red Tent (2014), in which he played her villainous brother Simon.
At the time of the movie's release, the Chancellor of Austria was Werner Faymann, and there was never an attempt on his life.
Second film in the Mission: Impossible film franchise to have a motorcycle chase scene. The first was Mission: Impossible II (2000). In both motorcycle chase sequences, Ethan wears sunglasses.
The operator who answers the phone when Ethan first calls in from London looks and sounds like Eugene Kittridge from Mission: Impossible (1996).
The headset that Solomon Lane uses towards the end of the movie is a Plantronics Voyager Legend.
This film and Edge of Tomorrow (2014) are set in London.
Spoilers ―
The first Mission: Impossible film, where the main villain is not killed.
The language spoken by Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Janik Vinter (Jens Hultén) in the beginning and the end of the movie is Swedish. Both cast members' country of origin is Sweden.
This is the second time that Ethan Hunt "dies" in the series, when he drowns in the underwater safe. The first time was in Mission: Impossible III (2006), where he was electrocuted, in order to deactivate the micro-bomb in his head. In both instances, he was successfully revived afterwards.
When Ethan Hunt walks into the record store to accept his next mission, the main antagonist can be seen sitting in the background waiting for him.
Benji Dunn mentioned in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) that he wanted to wear a face mask. Although he appears to wear one in this movie, that scene turns out to be only a hypothetical outcome of his mission. However, he actually does. A deleted scene set at C.I.A. Headquarters in Langley (when Benji was benched), has him impersonating Hunley with a face mask, and engaging the real Hunley in a cat-and-mouse game. The scene was cut, as it was judged too confusing in previews.
This is the first film in the series where a member of Ethan's team (Benji) is kidnapped by the primary antagonist, although Ethan himself is kidnapped in Mission: Impossible III(2006). In fact, Ethan's insistence on saving Benji in this film, could be seen as him returning a favor from Mission: Impossible III (2006). In that film, Benji is the only character to help Ethan save his kidnapped wife.
Rebecca Ferguson bears a slight resemblance to Ingrid Bergman. Ferguson's character in this film is named Ilsa Faust, this is a reference to Bergman's character, Ilsa Lund from Casablanca (1942), a European star-crossed lover who falls for an American, and the German legend Faust, where the title character makes an ill-fated deal with the devil. Both characters foreshadow Ilsa Faust's role in the film. This movie also has a sequence set in Casablanca, with Ferguson in it. Tom Cruise's first celebrity crush was Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946).
This is the only Mission: Impossible film to date, where Ethan Hunt is not in the last scene of the movie.
The poem the British Prime Minister reads off to activate the Syndicate are lines taken from the Rudyard Kipling poem, "If-".
Jeremy Renner has the first and last lines in the film.
Sean Harris was very hesitant in accepting the role of Solomon Lane, because he felt that he remains not well known on the big screen, but more on the television circuit. The reason he took the role, was because of an exchange scene originally set at the climax where Solomon and Ethan talk about man's loss of faith. This scene was eventually cut after previews, as it was alluded earlier, and it didn't match the subsequent revised scenes after that.
Like Mission: Impossible (1996), Mission: Impossible III (2006), and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), this film sees Ethan Hunt once again forced to go on the run. Mission: Impossible II (2000) is the only film in the franchise where Ethan Hunt doesn't go on the run, and actually goes on a mission assigned to him by I.M.F.
This is the first film in the series to adapt a primary antagonist from the original Mission: Impossible (1966) television show (although the Jim Phelps character turned out to be the antagonist of Mission: Impossible (1996), he was not an antagonist in the original series).
Body Count: thirty-six.
When Ethan Hunt finds Ilsa and Benji at the restaurant, Benji is strapped with a timed bomb. He is repeating what the villain, Lane, is wanting to say to Hunt through an earpiece. This is reminiscent of the first season finale of Sherlock (2010), where the villain, Moriarty, speaks to Sherlock through his victims who are strapped to timed bombs and fitted with earpieces. Both scenes are set in London.
After Ethan Hunt tranquilizes the British Prime Minister during the charity auction in the third act of the film, C.I.A. Director Alan Hunley tells him that he may have just set relations between the United States and the United Kingdom "back to the American Revolution." Tom Hollander, who portrays the Prime Minister, also portrayed King George III (the British monarch during the American Revolution) in John Adams (2008).
Ethan stops the attempt on the Austrian Chancellor's life during the opera Turandot. This is when he meets Ilsa properly for the first time, and they escape together. During their goodbye scene the song Nessun Dorma plays. This piece of music is from the opera Turandot, and it is famous as the song performed by Paul Potts during his audition in Britain's Got Talent (2007), and in signature performances by opera great Luciano Pavarotti.
The scene where Ethan chases Ilsa on motorcycle after she steals the thumb drive is similar to the barrel roll stunt in Casino Royale (2006). Bond has been chasing villains, and he abruptly brakes when he sees Vesper Lynd in the road, and the Astin Martin DBS is destroyed. In this film, when Ethan turns a corner and sees Ilsa standing in the road, forcing him to brake and lose control of his motorcycle.
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Alec Baldwin's character, when talking to Brandt, describes Ethan Hunt as "both arsonist and fireman". Alec's brother, William Baldwin, appeared in Backdraft (1991), where an arsonist was later identified as a fireman.
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