MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (2011)
Tagline: No Plan. No Backup. No Choice.
(Adventure, Thriller, Magnets) [PG-13]
The Secretary is dead. The President has invoked Ghost Protocol. We're shut down. No satellite, safe house, support, or extraction. The four of us and the contents of this car are all that remains of the IMF.
Also known as MI:4 in this one the Impossible Mission Force (but apparently no longer so secret no one knows about them) is implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin in Russia. As it turns out a dangerous mastermind has the launch codes to the Russian nuclear arsenal, and he is dead set on resetting the world via thermal nuclear war and has gotten away with using the bombing as cover. Because the IMF is deemed too dangerous it is shut down using “Ghost Protocol” which disavows every agent. Ethan Hunt must team up with the remaining agents which now include Brandt, Jane, and Benji. There is no help, no one they can trust, and no chance of success. It’s mission impossible.
So this is my fourth MISSION IMPOSSIBLE review and unfortunately, this is the first one that just fell very flat for me. The opening sequence seems like it takes forever and all the reasoning behind it makes so little sense it borders on stupidity. It actually pains me to say that, because I love this series so far, and sadly, this was just a massive letdown. One issue I had was with Jeremy Renner (AVENGERS: ENDGAME) as Brandt. Renner is basically playing a boring Hawkeye in this movie and the performance just comes across like he doesn’t want to be there. Normally you are going to have Luther in this role as the other male lead in the IMF, but we don’t see Luther till the very end of the movie for like 15 seconds.
The score is awesome again, the sets are elaborate and the action sequences when we get them are pretty solid. There are some cool concepts introduced in here, but it bugged the crap out of me that almost all of the team’s equipment in this movie fails. It’s kind of insane for a group that is supposed to be this elite and have the best equipment there is. I mean, we don’t just get 1 or 2 things that break. Pretty much everything in this movie that Ethan and his crew are using breaks.
Acting wise there is very little of both Michelle Monaghan and Ving Rhames in this, but I was very glad to see them both because, for me, they are the two characters I am most emotionally connected to. Taking a heavier role was Paula Patton (WARCRAFT) and she does a great job as Jane. She is asked to do quite a few things in this that are both physically and emotionally demanding. Simon Pegg who seems to be everywhere ends up being a huge part of this movie as Benji. He does spend a bunch of time behind a computer but is also far more active than he was in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: III. This isn’t saying much I guess, because he only had about 3 minutes of screen time in that movie. Obviously, Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hawk and does a solid job in this as well. We also get Léa Seydoux as Sabine and she is pretty fantastic. Apparently, I am not the only one that thought so because she has also appeared in two of the recent 007 movies as Dr. Madeleine Swann.
J.J. Abrams did help produce this movie but the director’s chair went to Brad Bird. Bird is mostly known for directing animated films. Two of which include both INCREDIBLES movies. Once again Tom Cruise does most of his own stunts, but I thought the Khalifa tower scene was pretty pretentious and they failed to show the scale of what was going on. Khalifa tower is literally the tallest building in the world at 2,722 feet, but instead of taking advantage of perspective, most of Tom’s scenes were done flat or at an angle that didn’t really give us a great idea of how high he actually was. There is also a scene where he is in a car that falls 100 feet and survives due to an airbag. The car would have been going about 55 mph when it hit the ground. His living would probably be less believable for me if I hadn’t been hit by a Mac truck doing 75 mph while in a Dodge Neon and also survived. I ended up with a couple scars from the airbag but yeah. DO NOT TRY either of these things.
In the final analysis, there is more good than bad in this movie. It’s still a pretty fun action flick but it does not capture the magic of either of the first 3 films and that probably had something to do with the villain having almost zero interaction with the main characters. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL gets a 5 out of 7.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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