Sandy Kenyon reviews 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation'

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Tom Cruise is back in a role that solidified him as an action star in the fifth installment of the highly-successful Mission: Impossible franchise. His character, Ethan Hunt, returns as a spy operative dealing with a new threat.

But is the movie worth the price of admission?

"Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation" is certainly exciting enough to justify a trip the theater, but it's just not as great as all of the hype would have you believe.

At the age of 53, Cruise is more determined than ever to do his own stunts.

"(I scare myself) all the time, man," he said. "I guess I don't mind being scared though every now and then. I kind of like the adrenaline rush of that."

And he doesn't believe in faking action with special effects.

"Because he knows that if it's authentic, if it's real, if he's really out there hanging off the side of an airplane, the audience will know it," producer J.J. Abrams said. "They will intuit it. They'll feel it. They'll see it, and it will make the movie better."

The problem is not with the action scenes, such as the one set during a performance at the Vienna Opera House, or the one set underwater for reasons that aren't quite clear, but in between gets boring.

Hunt finds himself estranged from his own government when the CIA, in the form of Alec Baldwin, shuts down the Impossible Missions Force.

Hunt is off hunting a terrorist organization called The Syndicate, alone until he can recruit his familiar pals.

It's all part of a plot that is unnecessarily complicated, but ultimately fun to watch.

RELATED LINKS:

Tom Cruise, cast bring stunts to life in 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation'

Tom Cruise attends 'Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation' premiere in Times Square