Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Review

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Review
By Darrin Jones / January 1

Ingredients: If you liked the gadgets from GoldenEye, the action of Taken, and, of course, the classic characters and plots of Mission: Impossible, you will like this movie.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a terrific return to form for the Mission: Impossible series. The plot is, of course, about Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise), running, leaping and bone-breaking his way through a covert mission with a small resource less team as they, literally, must save the world singlehandedly. The plot is your standard bad guy acquires weapons of mass destruction in hopes of creating...world peace? Well that’s not the important part, let’s hear about the action! Just imagine these few scenes out of context for a moment: escaping a Russian prison, climbing on the outside of the tallest building in the world, and a fist fight inside a parking garage swapping cars like a disc changer. If that doesn’t get your testosterone pumping I don’t know what will. Unlike some other Mission: Impossible movies of yesteryear, Ethan’s new IMF team -- Impossible Mission Force for those that don’t like acronyms -- avoids Europe in exchange for truly exotic environments; making appearances in Dubi, Mumbi, and Russia and using every bit of scenery to their advantage. The fights are action-packed and the violence visceral. Every punch, car crash and gun fight takes it out of all parties involved and you really feel it too.

But what’s an action movie without a little levity? Brandt (as played by Jeremy Renner) and Benji (Simon Pegg) are a perfect duo of humorous remarks with a hint of slapstick. But where Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol succeeds while other action movies fail, is that everything is incredibly well balanced. The action is realistic yet spectacular, the humor is entertaining but subtle and the characters are three dimensional with terrific personality. The only character that might fall flat for some people would be the fourth member of Ethan’s team, Jane (as played by Paula Patton). Jane’s major driving force is revenge against an assassin that killed her partner on the mission that Ethan was tapped to step in on. While Jane is a butt-kicking take-no-guff secret agent woman, her character arc gets concluded near the middle of the film causing her to lose a lot of her motivation and appeal.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a nearly perfect action movie. It’s far better than most but suffers from a few M:I clichés and, of course, any action flick with Tom Cruise is going to include him running like crazy to, from, or after someone. There’s always some plan that falls through multiple times and the bad guy is somehow always five steps ahead of the IMF team but, hey, that’s what keeps everything tense and cool. My biggest annoyance with the film is the end drags on just a few minutes too long, and it’s chalk full of sappy ‘we’re such a good team!’ moments. In all, just a great movie, well worth the watch.