Movies: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Score: **** out of *****

Long Story Short: For a high-octane early-2012 time at the theater, check out Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol. There are flaws, but the pros outweigh the cons; Cruise is still fun despite a wooden supporting cast. Some fantastic scenes, most notably the Dubai skyscraper, will make you forget about the pitiful attempts to inject emotion into the story. If you're only going to see one film, I recommend Sherlock, but this one's good, too.

On my own mission: possible to check out a bunch of interesting holiday-season films in the theater, the new Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol turned out to be second in line. After thoroughly enjoying 2006's Mission: Impossible III, I was pleased when I found out about this one. After seeing it get such a high score on Rotten Tomatoes (currently 93% positive reviews), I was even more keen to see it. This fourth installment in the series was directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) and brought in Jeremy Renner to co-star with Tom Cruise.

The IMF (super-secret American spy agency) is already at work on their first mission as the film opens - breaking out a prisoner from a Russian jail. The prisoner is none other than Ethan Hunt (Cruise). Hunt gets no rest, though, immediately receiving a mission to break into the Kremlin in order to discover the identity of a shadowy villain. Assisted by newbies Agent Carter (Patton) and Dunn (Pegg), Hunt has to improvise. To make matters worse, Hunt and his team find themselves on their own afterwards, even as they begin to understand the enemy's catastrophic scheming.

Using their few remaining resources, Hunt and Co. fly to Dubai to intercept a transfer of nuclear launch codes to the enemy. With a mix of success and failure, they have to scramble across the globe yet again to India in a desperate bid to stop a cunning foe from unleashing massive, worldwide destruction.

Tom Cruise once again leads the cast in this latest Mission, one that is notably weaker than the one from the last film. Cruise is great in this kind of action film, fitting the part of a strong, capable hero and leader with great energy. He also has underrated comic timing which is enhanced by but also fitting in with the intensity of his character. I mostly blame the script, rather than his performance, when the film's handful of attempts to draw emotion fall flat. His first two partners, Agents Carter (Paula Patton) and Dunn (Simon Pegg) are flat, one-note co-stars, although Pegg at least adds a good bit of welcome humor. Renner is rather disappointing in his role; he's good at the action, but his performance in the "emotional" bits is painful to watch. Villain Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) gets relatively little screen time but does a good job. It was nice to see Lost-alum Josh Holloway (Sawyer) get a brief but entertaining part.

Fortunately, you probably won't go see Mission: Impossible for the acting. You go for the action set pieces. The key scene in this film is the Dubai skyscraper (I'm sure you've seen it in commercials). Wow. Now, I'm afraid of heights, which is significant, but this scene is shot so well and with so much tension, I think anyone seeing it in the theater would be gripping their seats for at least half of it. It's one of the most exciting scenes I've seen in a film in years. The opening scene with the prison break is also great, more so for its creativity and sense of humor. The break-in at the Kremlin also offers a fun ride. The effects (with a few exceptions) are fantastic, as is the general cinematography. These action films try to incorporate crowd-pleasing humor and varying amounts of emotional sideshow. As you probably have figured out by now, Mission handles the humor part of this MUCH better than the emotional. Finally, the score is a lot of fun, combining the classic Mission theme which is almost up there with the Bond theme, and the great film composer Michael Giacchino's clever modern variations.

***

Whereas the last film I reviewed, the new Sherlock, qualified as about the best possible 4 star film I can think of, this one just barely qualifies as a 4 star. The first two-thirds (ie: up until going to India) of the film would have easily put it up their with Sherlock. But the last third becomes a pretty formulaic affair; and to make it worse, the very last scene is drawn out way too long and tries really hard to get a tear out of the audience when it really just got a tired sigh from me. What gets this to 4 stars is 1) well, most of the movie is very well made, and 2) the Dubai scene. Yeah, it's that good. Plus, Cruise is still a charismatic, effective action star, and the humor and score are great. I think it's enough to make up for the film's flaws, even if I believe that critics overall are nuts to give Mission (93% on RT) a better reception that the new Sherlock (59%).