Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol Review

Tom cruse climes really high in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

B+

 A Review by Frederick Cholowski

After three films, the Mission Impossible franchise is reinventing itself again. This time with director Brad Bard at the helm, new members added to the crew, and about 20 minutes worth of footage shot in IMAX. The result is a fun action movie that feels more a kin to a James Bond movie than to the previous Mission Impossible films.

As in prior films MI4 follows Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) an IMS spy. This time after stylishly breaking out of Russian Prison Ethan and his team are framed for the bombing of the Russian Kremlin. This leads to the entire IMF being labeled as terrorists. His team this time round consists of the computer guy Benji (Simon Pegg), the tough female Jane (Paula Patton) and the “research guy” Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Their mission (if they chooses to accept it) it to hunt down the man who bombed the Kremlin, Hendricks (Michal Nyqvist), take the nuclear bomb codes away from him, and clear their names.

The plot is very standard for this kind of spy film and it allows for a lot of globetrotting and big action set pieces. The problem with the film is that it’s a little too long. The film starts to wear out its welcome in the last twenty minutes. As well the ending (despite the awesome final set piece) feels a little sloppy. Another small problem is that the film in its 133 minutes doesn’t give a lot of character exploration. What characters we get are subpar, and while I’m not expecting overly deep and complex characters in an action film I would like a villain who speaks more than about 6 lines of dialogue (poor Michal Nyqvist is terribly underused).

Acting wise this film is solid. Tom Cruise seems to be on autopilot here and is solid as Ethan Hunt. Paula Patton, who manages to get most of the emotional scenes, is fine here as well. Jeremy Renner acts as a kind of second super spy to Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg provides some welcome comic relief. As for the villain Michal Nyqvist, as mentioned earlier, is horribly underused and never has time to make Hendricks all that menacing.

The visuals are where this film truly shines. This film looks gorgeous in IMAX with the few key sequences that are shot in IMAX being the standouts. One in particular that takes place on the tallest building in the world in Dubai is absolutely stunning. I have never felt more tension and excitement in a single action. It actually feels like you’re up on the building with the character. The score is standard spy affair with a variety of different tracks to go with each location. It’s big and bombastic but never takes away from the film.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol is a very solid action movie. It is fast paced and a lot of fun from start to finish. Sure it is long and sometimes sloppy, but when the action scenes are this breathtaking and the set pieces so fantastic, the shortcomings can be forgiven; at least for most of the film.