Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: An IMAX Experience

Disavowed at its Best

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Rated: PG-13 Sequences of intense action and violence
Release Date: December 16, 2011
Runtime: 2 hrs 13 min

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Director: Brad Bird
Writers: Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, based on the TV series "Mission: Impossible" by Bruce Geller
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Samuli Edelmann

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SYNOPSIS: When the IMP is disavowed and shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt and a small rogue team are all that's left to clear the organization's name.

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REVIEW: This movie, if you choose to accept it, may be the best of the series. Filled with exotic locations, action, and humor, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol has all of the elements for a hard hitting, heart racing thrill ride. Brad Bird, now the fourth director in the movie franchise - following Brian De Palma, John Woo, and J.J. Abrams - brings his own take to the franchise. Director of the well-received animations The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, Brad Bird takes a story from "Happy Town", "Life on Mars", and "Alias" writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec and molds its into his own unique style, while keeping the core of what makes the franchise the success it is.

Ghost Protocol opens with an operative Hanaway (Josh Holloway, "Lost") with a satchel running from armed assailants. The outcome of that mission leads to another mission. Fresh field agent communications and computer specialist Benji (Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead) and vet field team leader Jane (Paula Patton, Jumping the Broom) lead an IMF extraction mission for Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, Knight and Day) from an eastern block maximum security prison. Once released, Ethan and the extraction team are tasked with a new mission to break in the Kremlin's Archives room to retrieve data on a nuclear terrorist known as 'Cobalt'. When a man named Henricks (Michael Nyqvist, The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo, 2009) retrieves the data first and sets off an explosion in the Kremlin, Ethan is captured. Both his team and the IMP organization is implicated in the terrorist act and is disavowed by the United States Government. Escaping from Russian custody and pursued by investigator Sidorov (Vladimir Mashkov, Behind Enemy Lines), Ethan reteams with Benji, Jane, and European chief analyst Brandt (Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker) to hunt down Hendricks and his henchman Wistrom (Samuli Edelmann) to clear the IMF's name and to advert nuclear disaster.

Ghost Protocol combines extreme action, international intrigue, high-tech gadgetry, and a sharp well-paced story to bring another impossible pulse-pounding, thrill ride of a mission to life. From Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai, the rogue IMF team has to manage without any outside support. With only themselves to count on, the stakes are higher, more personal, and more dire.

Cruise's continues to amaze with his stunt work and stamina. Like a coiled panther, his character Ethan is always ready to pounce into action with a calculated regard for his own life. Joining him, Paula Patton as Jane is a tortured, ass-kicking exotic beauty able to use her body and her brawn to get the job done. Simon Pegg, an action hero in his own right with Hot Fuzz, steps aside for Cruise to have a chance at the action spotlight and supplies the quirky laughs, mugs and double takes that has made this entry of the franchise the most funny and entertaining. Renner's Brandt is a wild card, supplying necessary intel to the team after their disconnect from the IMF databases. Renner also brings a checkered, tortured secret and some mixed martial arts fighting skills that do not match his occupation. 

With exotic locales and extreme stunts, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, brings it and leaves it all on the silver screen. For an actioner of this caliber, one would have expected Ghost Protocol to be more comfortable with a Summer release slot. All the better for Cruise, crew, and the franchise to avoid the action white noise of the hotter months.

From an insane window hugging, death-defying climb outside of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, in Dubai, to a high-tech parking garage showdown in Mumbai, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol has enough for any adrenaline junkie. Couple that with a fast-paced engrossing story, Ghost Protocol is a mission I will certainly accept!

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WORTH: Matinee and DVD