Who would’ve thought that the fifth installment of a franchise could be interesting or vibrant?

Certainly the folks behind Fast & Furious, which catapulted to new heights with 2011’s Fast Five. The fifth installment of the Tom Cruise lead Mission:Impossible franchise doesn’t quite hit that level of awesome - but since its rebirth in M:I—3, this spy franchise continues to be great - and the newest installment, Rogue Nation, delivers as some late-Summer entertainment.

On paper, the plotline for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation sounds like a very very weak sequel idea. You know how we love the IMF? THERE’S AN EVIL VERSION. And their name? Just The Syndicate. It’s your basic played-out story. Take the hero, give it the inverse. But thankfully, Rogue Nation (under the script and direction of Jack Reacher’s Christopher McQuarrie) uses this trope of a concept as a launching point, resulting in a film with some of the most intense and hard nosed set-pieces the franchise has hosted yet.

Want to see Tom Cruise legitimately ride the side of a plane? No problem, that’s before the credits. Want to see a tense and well choreographed sequence in an opera house? Done. How about a crazy underwater infiltration bit, where super spy Ethan Hunt has to hold his breath an inhuman amount of time? YOU GOT IT! And that doesn’t even include the car chases and hand to hand combat. In short, it’s another globe-spanning, action-filled romp.

Some old favorites are back, including Simon Pegg’s Benji, Ving Rhames’ Luther, and - even though he did nothing for me in the last installment - Jeremy Renner’s back too. Eh.

Making it fun are the newbies, including Alec Baldwin as a CIA head who wants to take down the IMF (they’re too risky!), and an enigmatic British agent, played by Rebecca Ferguson.

Honestly, Ferguson is the movie’s secret weapon. She’s an incredibly capable, total bad-ass of an agent. And thankfully? They never resort her to a love interest. She’s enough to make you hope that they’ll finally bring back a female IMF agent for a second go around. Why Paula Patton couldn’t be in this one is beyond me, but the creators would have to justify that one.

If Rogue Mission has any flaws, it’s a MacGuffin filled third-act, full of double crosses, triple crosses, twists, turns, and - naturally - a flash drive. That, and the lead bad guy was someone I could never take seriously, continuing a legacy of less-than-stellar big bad’s in the Mission: Impossible franchise, with the notable exception of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Yes, it’s not as great as Ghost Protocol, yes, the third act isn’t the best, but between the awesome work of Rebecca Ferguson (who I really want to see more of), and some absolutely thrilling, mostly practical action sequences, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is just what the end of Summer needs - a thrilling great time entertaining you in an air-conditioned theater. Check it out.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is in theaters now, and is available for pre-order on Amazon and iTunes.