There’s a lot going on in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. Like any great spy movie, there’s a complex and loosely convoluted plot of who’s who and what’s what and to whom does who owe which allegiance and—look, the inner-doings of the plot may elude some people. That’s an occupational hazard of the spy genre, of which this movie pays loving homage. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, obviously) is back for another mission with a snappily written script that shines with the same sharpened wit as ‘90s classic The Usual Suspects, of which Rogue Nation writer/director Christopher McQuarrie wrote the famous screenplay. There’s a whirlpool of shady allegiances, double-crosses and double double-crosses, namely by femme fatale secret agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who’s one of the joys of the film. James Bond used to be the king of the how-did-they-do-that action scene, a crown now fought over by the fuselage-dropping, hallway-spinning, truck-flipping Christopher Nolan and, well, Mission: Impossible. Rogue Nation doesn’t buck the trend; each major stunt sequence wows.

Instead of trying to top Ghost Protocol on action or just plain fun—a truly impossible mission and McQuarrie wisely chose not accept it—Rogue Nation is meaner, sleeker, and leaner than any movie in the franchise. It’s a spiritual union between the espionage focus of Brian De Palma’s original Mission: Impossible and the explosive thrills of Ghost Protocol, bringing this amazingly consistent franchise full circle. In a statement-making audacious move, Rogue Nation opens with its biggest, craziest stunt, almost as if to get it out of the way. Tom Cruise is on the side of a huge plane during takeoff, and McQuarrie shoots it in such a way to thrillingly show you Cruise did that stunt for real. The man is incredible, and he’s only out to please. There’s a confident no-fuss attitude to this sequence, classic Bond, to shed expectations quickly of what this movie is going to be.

From there, Rogue Nation goes back in time. From the old record player that showed Ethan his next mission to revisiting the immortalized movie town Casablanca, retroism isn’t just a motif but a mission statement. A spellbinding early-film opera sequence is evocative of classic Hitchcock, and other than a mid movie triple-punch crescendo where there is three death-defying action scenes are in a row, it’s back to basics. The hard-knuckled final 40 minutes (mostly) does away with car chases, absurd gadgets, and the over the top stunts that made this series famous. There’s no WMDs or nuclear warheads on the way to blow up America, just spy game chess—spy vs. spy, moving through shadows and the London fog, recalling the exact kind of sequence that once was the centerpiece of spy movies in the 1950s and ‘60s. To shrink the scale the further it goes on in this action-movie climate of ‘bigger is better’ can only be called brave. Maybe even inspired.