This weekend’s offer at Royston Picture Palace brings a recently-released summer blockbuster to town in case you didn’t make it to a multiplex, but also sees a screening of a big star’s movie which never had the chance to build an audience on general release.

The megabucks marquee name in question is the latest cinema chapter from the hugely successful Mission Impossible brand.

Although it was first a smash on the small screen, the MI set-up of undercover operatives tackling insanely-complicated challenges has really made its mark as a movie proposition, thanks to an A-list star and the opportunity to make the most of eye-popping special effects.

The big star – in terms of industry heft if not stature – is chiselled Tom Cruise, who shows no signs of bowing out as the brand embarks on its fifth adventure.

In Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation our hero and his assorted hangers-on take on their most challenging assignment yet.

Their aim is to eradicate the Syndicate, an international rogue organisation which boasts evil operatives just as skilled and bent on the destruction of the good guys.

What happens next is entirely secondary to the spectacle as Cruise teams up again with Christopher McQuarrie, who was his director on Jack Reacher and also had a hand in other big projects like Edge of Tomorrow and Valkyrie.

The Reacher film was workmanlike if only given a lukewarm reception by fans of the bestselling Lee Child books on which it was based, but didn’t offer much opportunity in the area of bells and whistles because of the relatively grounded storyline.

Now they’re able to cut loose with the special effects toy box, with returning cast members including Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, and new faces like Alec Baldwin in the cast.

The film is showing at 7.30pm on Friday night and you can reserve tickets online at www.roystonpicturepalace.org.uk.

On Saturday night you can catch Beyond The Reach, which came out last year but never made the multiplex.

Michael Douglas, who has had plenty of experience playing unpleasant corporate sharks, is front and centre in full capitalist creep mode and pitted against naive young tracker Jeremy Irvine out in the unforgiving desert.

Forget the why and how and get into the obvious set-up – old, loaded and loathsome against innocent hometown boy prone to take his shirt off. Who are you going to root for? Great locations, more realistic than Tom’s antics, and a much more human action adventure.