The Mission: Impossible movie franchise has always been about going to all the coolest places in the world and blowing them up real good. So you can mark the latest installment Ghost Protocol - starring Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg - as a win because it offers all the exotic locations and high-flying action one could ask for.
But director Brad Bird and producer J.J. Abrams are both capable of creating action films with brains and heart, and this movie doesn't have a lot in either category.
Brad Bird Directs Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Starring Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton
It's just another routine assignment for Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and the IMF: sneak inside the Kremlin to steal some secrets. Unfortunately, a Swedish terrorist named Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) got there first and he blew up half the place as a going-away present.
Not surprisingly, Hunt and the IMF are implicated in the blast. With tensions between the US and Russia running high, the President has no choice but to disavow the IMF. Hunt invokes the Ghost Protocol: with his new team - William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) - he goes rogue to clear his name and stop Hendricks from causing a nuclear holocaust.
"Don't these guys watch Mythbusters?" one audience member commented during the screening. Okay, we'll give a pass to the iconic masks since they've been a staple since the original TV series, but a sequence where Cruise and Renner swim underwater while sniper bullets zip past should be consigned to the action movie trash can. High-velocity bullets just aren't deadly below two feet of water.
Quibbles aside, Ghost Protocol offers enough fights, car chases and high-flying stunts to satisfy the most jaded action junkie: the sequence where Tom Cruise scales Dubai's Burj Khalifa Tower is just about worth the price of admission right there. I also liked the fact that the series' technology was either unavailable or didn't work half the time; that upped the stakes and forced the characters to think their way out of situations.
Unfortunately, those brains didn't go as far as the characterization: our heroes and villains are one-dimensional stereotypes with very little depth. It's a shame because we've seen both Brad Bird and J.J. Abrams deliver so much more in the action genre. Bird's The Incredibles not only sent up the superhero genre with its riffs on villain monologuing and secret identity issues, but also gave us well-developed characters with real issues. Abrams' Super 8 also offered nuanced characters that felt real to audiences. So it's doubly sad to see such spectacular talents phoning it in here.
Paramount's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Entertains but Doesn't Fulfill its Potential
It's not that this film isn't good - there are some great action sequences - but with the talent involved, this movie could have been so much better. That's why it gets a 3/5.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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