First look–Cruise, Rhames and Pegg return in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

How does he do it? How does Tom Cruise keep churning out exciting movies, over and over again? We can count 27 of his movies that we’d watch all over again, out of a total body of work of 37 movies. Taps, The Outsiders, Top Gun, Rain Man, Far and Away, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Jerry Maguire, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, Collateral, War of the Worlds, Valkyrie, Jack Reacher, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow–any actor would love to have just a few of these in their portfolio, and Cruise was the lead in all but two. (We hid several Tom Cruise movies in a review of Jack Reacher a year ago here at borg.com–can you find them all?). Then you have Cruise’s own version of James Bond–only there he is Ethan Hunt and the series is Mission: Impossible.

The fifth entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise is coming your way soon. Each of its predecessors had something new to offer, although none better than Brian De Palma’s 1996 original, derived from the classic TV series. Mission: Impossible co-starred Jon Voight, Ving Rhames–a staple for the entirety of the series, and Kristin Scott Thomas. Every action director wants to try his hand at making a Mission: Impossible movie. Director John Woo helmed Mission: Impossible II in 2000, co-starring Brendon Gleeson and Dougray Scott. In 2006, J.J. Abrams and writing duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci gave it a try with Mission: Impossible III. This best of the sequels so far co-starred Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michelle Monaghan, Billy Crudup, Lawrence Fishburne, and brought comedic actor Simon Pegg into the mix. Then in 2011 Mission: Impossible–Ghost Protocol, directed by Brad Bird of The Incredibles fame, added Jeremy Renner to the team.