Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Regardless of the quality of any film I am easily lured in by slick trailer and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (hereinafter referred to as MI4) definitely had one of those. 

PLOT:  Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team of Benji (Simon Pegg), Jane (Paula Patton) and shifty Brandt (Jeremy Renner) find themselves framed for blowing up the Kremlin.  With nuclear war pending Ethan and his team must travel to Dubai and Mumbai in order to track down the terrorist.  END PLOT

The plot of MI4 is standard fare with the tried and tested Russian terrorism/nuclear threat storyline being recycled once more but let’s be honest – nobody is going to see MI4 for complex storytelling.   Aside from a few lags in pacing which induced several brief moments of boredom the plot did a decent job of moving us from one exotic and action packed location to another.

The set pieces were impressive especially Ethan scaling the Burj Khalifa building.  The main strength of MI4 is that despite all the futuristic technology such as camera fitted contact lenses it keeps its action reasonably grounded.

The score is the familiar MI theme and pops up regularly throughout the film with my favourite moment being the extended opening credits sequence.

I am not a fan of Tom Cruise and I will never understand why other people are (that's the real mission impossible).  In MI4 Cruise deploys his evil dead eyes and fake white smile in their usual manner.  Cruise isn’t getting any younger and as the sacrificial ritual to keep him looking radiant is no longer working it was necessary to introduce a potential young replacement for Ethan in the form of 40 year old Jeremy Renner.

I like Jeremy Renner (just as well as he is appearing in a couple of blockbusters in 2012) and he was good fun as Brandt.  The problem is Renner is at least ten years too old – cast someone else in that age range and reboot.  

Simon Pegg kept to his usual shtick which was amusing in parts but he is always weaker without Nick Frost.

Josh Holloway got his arse of a Hawaiian beach for a little cameo and Ving Rhames phoned in a one scene performance and earned the easiest $7.7million in history (IMDB).

The most intriguing thing to come out of MI4 is the discovery that Brad Bird is very capable of directing a live action feature.  It is easy to compare aspects of MI4 to The Incredibles but this is no bad thing.

Mission Impossible:  Ghost Protocol was a fun experience which required me to do nothing more than disengage my limited brain functioning capabilities and tag along for the ride.  Mission complete.  7/10.