MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL

I must admit, I’ve never been a fan of either Tom Cruise movies or BIG ACTION MOVIES THAT YOU MUST SEE RIGHT NOW! The decision to go and see a late night session of the fourth chapter of the MI series was more born of boredom than a real desire to watch it.

However, the start of the movie was quite dynamic and I quickly got into it. The story follows main character, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and several other agents played by Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Paul), Paula Patton (Déjà Vu, Mirrors) and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, 28 Weeks Later). They race against time to stop a crazed villain from unleashing nuclear war, after IMF is framed for a terrorist attack, and forced into “Ghost Protocol”, meaning they must disband. Unfortunately, the villains’ reasons for his crazed plot are never fully explained.

Simon Pegg plays Benji - the computer geek, who attempts at times to break the serious atmosphere that Cruise portrays but as far as I could tell, he only succeeds about two or three times. Paula Patton plays Jane – the cool, sexy agent, who is a little unhinged after the death of a close friend near the beginning of the movie, while Jeremy Renner plays an “analyst”, with exceptional field skills. I found that Renner and Cruise were most suited to their characters, pulling off some great acting. It was hard to relate to villain, Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), mostly because we never get the chance to see what is driving him towards his goal.

The movie was refreshingly free of CGI effects, aside from the massive but still believable explosion at the Kremlin, and I was impressed to learn that Cruise does his own stunts, resulting in a very believable looking scene on the tallest building in the world – the Burj Khalifa. The camera work here was also very good, capturing some great shots that really gave me a sense of vertigo. The music was also well suited to the movie, with the traditional theme really heightening some areas of suspense.

But, while it is easy to highlight the great areas of this movie, I feel that I can only give it a 4 out of 5 stars. The plot was really just unbelievable, as we never got that important insight into Hendricks, and why he pursued the goal that he did, though it is hard to blame them for not putting in some extra scenes for him – the movie was 2h and 10m long. The movie itself didn’t drag, but it didn’t really provoke any thoughts afterwards – just another (admittedly cool) action movie. 


Connor

You can see the trailer for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol here.