Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Dir. Brad Bird

It’s amazing to think that the first Mission Impossible movie starring Tom Cruise came out 15 years ago. Back then, Alanis Morissette was at the top of the charts and the O.J. Simpson trial was just warming up.

The first movie in the series, directed by Brian De Palma, was, despite some iconic scenes, a labyrinthine plot that focused more about canted angles than coherency. The next movie, appropriately titled Mission Impossible II (or MI: 2 for you cool kids), eschewed the twisty-turny plot for a more straightforward action film with John Woo’s signature balletic action scenes. 2006’s film (MI: III, surprise), took the film into J.J. Abrams land meaning complex, emotionally turbulent scenes and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as one bad-ass villain. Despite the strength of MI:III (which was the strongest film to date, I felt), the film struggled at the box office and the franchise was in question.

Five years later, however, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol made it off the ground under the watchful eye of director Brad Bird, Pixar animation wunderkind responsible for such lauded films as Ratatouille and The Incredibles. As an animation director, Bird has an eye for the absurd. Ridiculous, over-the-top action scenes set atop towering sky-scrapers, in whirling sandstorms, and a daring escape from a Hungarian prison. Preposterous, yes, but it is called Mission Impossible, not Mission Plausible. The action scenes are set up with dizzying aplomb. Several members of the audience were gasping just at the notion of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt climbing the outside of the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, but he was going to do it with, basically, one hand tied behind his back! The film certainly has some of the best action of the year, and in glorious IMAX no less.

Ghost Protocol represents a shift in tone for the MI series. Abrams had set up his film with a very complex emotional undertone, the home life of Ethan Hunt, if you will. That film saw Ethan settling down and getting married and the difficulties that can bring to an international spy. Though this complication is present in Ghost Protocol, in surprising ways, the film is more about good, old fashioned action. The MacGuffin this time is a set of codes that a megalomaniac wants to control in order to unleash nuclear war on the world. Not the most original, for sure and even Michael Nyqvist as the film’s main antagonist has very little presence in the movie. Similarly, Tom Wilkinson shows up as the secretary of IMF but basically phones in his role as the "Basil Exposition" character. Instead, the team, comprised of regular Simon Pegg and newcomers Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton, hop from locale to locale always just a step behind the bad guys meaning a daring chase to catch up.

Let’s be honest. The action movies of late have been tiresome. Yes we all marvel at the cosmic hammer of Thor; we all coo over the ambulatory simian Caesar, but for my money, the best kind of action is the one of an ordinary man, try to get the bad guys before they blow up the world. And if he has to jump down an empty elevator shaft only to stop a few millimeters before being eviscerated by a large spinning fan – so be it.

Grade: A-