Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

It may seem like an odd decision on the part of the studio to hire Brad Bird, an animation filmmaker best known for his work with Pixar on films like The Incredibles and Ratatouille, to helm the fourth installment of the 15-year-old Mission: Impossible film franchise. But watch the first 90 minutes of Ghost Protocol, and you will see that Bird delivers some of the finest action, stunts, and special effects Hollywood has to offer. Wait, did I say the first 90 minutes? Indeed I did, as this is a 133 minute long movie, and the remaining 43 minutes unfortunately are not as strong. Still, the movie doesn't suffer too much, and even at its worse, this still stands head and shoulders above just about any action film release you could mention to come out in 2011.

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, who is this time on the trail of a madman named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who wants to get his hands on some weapons and some nuke codes so that he can start a war. The movie doesn't go a whole lot deeper than that into Hendricks' motivation. Anyone looking for deep espionage would be better off looking elsewhere. The movie is almost pure action, with sequences sometimes coming one after another, such as when Ethan Hunt first has to climb up the outside of a 100+ story building, then pose as an arms dealer to fool the villains, then gets in a fistfight, and then gets in a high speed chase, while a massive sandstorm is closing in. I'm sure you can picture such a chain of events as being tiring and maybe even overkill, but the movie is skillful, the action sequences are clean and precisely edited, and the whole thing is just over the top enough that we are still able to suspend disbelief. The whole thing works quite beautifully on a thrill ride level.

Accompanying Hunt on his latest mission are Benji (Simon Pegg), a computer expert and the only returning supporting character from the last movie, Jane (Paula Patton), who delivers the film's sex appeal and gets to show off her fighting skills in a memorable girl fight sequence with an evil female terrorist, and Brandt (Jeremy Renner), who is just an analyst for Hunt's agency, but seems to have an awful lot of battle experience. Their mission to track down Hendricks becomes complicated when the villain blows up the Kremlin, and frames Hunt's team. Our heroes find themselves "disavowed", and the head of the organization sets up a Ghost Protocol, in which Hunt and his team can still continue their mission, but will have to do it on their own, without the help of the agency. This begins a world-wide chase across places like Dubai and Moscow in order to prevent Hendricks from setting off the nukes, and destroying the fragile relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

The first 90 minutes or so of Ghost Protocol left me nearly as breathless as the film's pacing, with Hunt racing from one location after another after Hendricks, and the movie leaping from one spectacular sequence after the next. After I saw the sequence where Hunt chases down the villain in the middle of a sandstorm, I actually found myself wondering how the movie was going to top itself. The answer, disappointingly, is that it doesn't even try to. Once this sequence is over, the movie seems kind of at a loss at what to do. While it never becomes boring, the remaining 43 minutes are never quite as exciting as what came before, and the climactic action sequence is somewhat of a let down. Please don't read this as me saying that Ghost Protocol is disappointing, as it certain isn't. It's just that everything that comes before it is spectacular, while the remainder is simply good.

As is to be expected, this is pretty much Cruise's movie, as he is not only the star, but also the lead producer. He gets most of the big stunts and action sequences, although co-star Jeremy Renner does get to perform a pretty big stunt near the end. Regardless, the movie is pretty much about Cruise and his fellow actors leaping from one big set piece to the next. The dialogue exists mainly to take us to the next sequence, or to give the characters some slight motivation. I think a big part as to why the film manages to still work is that despite its formula of all action-almost-all-the-time, director Brad Bird does know how to pace himself. He builds up our expectations, and then he manages to deliver. He also shows a sense of humor, giving Hunt and some of his supporting agents a few more one liners than I think they had in previous films. The fact that the one liners are actually funny manage to give the characters more personality.

The real test to which Ghost Protocol should be judged, however, is how does the movie make you feel during its action sequences. Let me tell you, when you see Tom Cruise climbing the outside of a massive shimmering building like Spider-Man, you won't be thinking about why doesn't anyone inside the building happen to look out the window and see him. You also won't be thinking about how the stunt was pulled off. All you'll be thinking about is the awe that the sequence is able to convey. I don't care if they used CG or a lot of film trickery, the sequence works, and the sense of danger it creates is palpable. That's all that matters. I'm sure the sequence is even more of a stunner in IMAX (which the film is also being show in, and has been designed for). Would it be worth it to check out one of the special IMAX screenings? Normally I would say no, but given the absolute power of some of these action sequences, it just might be worth it.

So yeah, the movie's not that well developed in its characters or plot. And no, I did not care for a minute. I really only started to get annoyed when the movie seemed to run out of gas slightly in the home stretch. But hey, if that was the worst thing I had to say about every action movie I saw, I'd be recommending them left and right. This is not a movie of tremendous brains, but it certainly took a lot of tremendous skill and talent to make, and it's all right up there on the screen.

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