Looking at director Brad Bird’s track record, it makes sense that “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” is as good as it is. With “Ratatouille” and “The Iron Giant,” Brad Bird has made some of the greatest animated films of all time.
With “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” Brad Bird works in live action for the first time, and makes the transition from animation impeccably, delivering one of the best action spectacles in years.
“Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” opens with Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) being busted out of a Russian prison by agents Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji (Simon Pegg).
After the Kremlin is bombed and blamed on Hunt’s team, Hunt teams up with the mysterious Brandt (Jeremy Renner) to capture Cobalt, a brilliant extremist determined to detonate a nuclear bomb.
The film features amazing action set pieces throughout, but maintains some internal sense of implausibility. While characters perform amazing feats, viewers are constantly aware that they are in danger based on the film’s internal rules, and are thus at the edge of their seats. The stakes are real and characters do acquire grievous bodily harm. Because the film constantly maintains a sense of plausibility, the danger is more visceral.
The danger is never more visceral than the Burj Khalifa scene, one of the most incredible action-adventure sequences in recent memory. Hunt is forced to scale the outside of the world’s tallest building using only a pair of high-tech suction cups. Cruise himself performed his own stunts during the scene, as well.
The lively performances of the cast are paired well with the action of the film. Cruise retains an air of suaveness, Pegg provides a memorable turn as the comic relief, and Renner fills the mysterious loner-type role admirably.
Viewers need to see the film in its best possible viewing format: IMAX. Nearly half an hour of the movie was filmed on the format, including the Burj Khalifa sequence and nearly all of the best action set pieces of the film.
Still, “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” is not perfect. The film features two scenes of clunky, dialogue-heavy bouts of exposition to help bridge the gap between it and “Mission: Impossible 3.” Unfortunately, the film ends on this note, with a bizarre, overly sentimental scene featuring poor dialogue.
“Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” is among the finest action films of the new decade. Of course, it doesn’t exactly have a lot of competition, but that’s still no modest feat. “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” is rated PG13 and is playing in theaters nationwide.
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