MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL

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This, the fourth instalment, is generally reckoned to have reinvigorated the franchise after a couple of missteps.

Fair enough, but this film is far from perfect, even if it does provide the template for the two much better films which immediately followed.

It divides very clearly into three acts, set in Moscow, Dubai, and Mumbai, and without the middle of these and the extraordinary stunt work up the Burj Khalifa, the film’s problems would be much more apparent.

For starters, the IMF team we have here is rather lacklustre.  Luther is scarcely present, and instead we have Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton.  Neither brings much to the party notwithstanding that the latter does look stunning in a green dress in Mumbai.  

The villain is deadly dull (especially compared with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the previous outing), and it’s beyond ridiculous that Ethan has so much trouble overcoming him physically in their climactic fight.

This is director Brad Bird's live-action debut, which perhaps explains why the action sequences aren't that hot, and that there is too much attempt at comedy throughout for my taste.  

Simon Pegg is severely overused:  he doesn’t need to be accompanying Ethan in the Kremlin, where he is an accident waiting to happen, and the stuff at the end with Renner and the fan is not only not that funny but it's inappropriate (to put it mildly) when we're heading to a climax in which the team is trying to stop a nuclear apocalypse.  

A weird aspect of this story is that the team are remarkably unsuccessful in everything they try: the Kremlin mission has to be aborted, the Dubai plan goes totally wrong, and in Mumbai they fail to stop the missile launch.  It all adds to a lack of momentum.

After the villain is defeated we get a prolonged final scene the only point of which is to let us know that Ethan's wife is still alive.  I can't help thinking that this reveal would have been much more effective if it had been delayed to the climax in Kashmir in 'Mission: Impossible – Fallout'.  And it's silly that having gone to all that effort to protect her, Ethan then lets the cat out of the bag to Renner, all because Ethan doesn't want Renner to beat himself up over failing to protect her.  It's a bummer of an ending.

RATING: ✓ Cheers



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