Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg
I went into this movie with a fair amount of hype, which was probably my first mistake. The first 3 Mission Impossible movies alone would have done little to enhance my anticipation of Ghost Protocol. But the movie was directed by Pixar super-genius Brad Bird (his first live-action effort) and was received quite well critically. Ghost Protocol also managed to stay in the news on the strength of the hype surrounding a sequence that takes place at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (Dubai being the new "it" city for movies seeking exotic locales). In case you somehow managed to not hear about it, Tom Cruise hangs from the side of the tallest building in the world during that sequence, and he does the stunt himself. Also contributing to my inability to avoid the hype machine associated with this movie is the fact that I live in Japan. Most American movies come and go here with little fanfare. The Hangover, Twilight, and all the Marvel movies are just some examples of huge American box office hits that barely register here. But when Japanese people do care about a movie, they go all out. Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean are examples of this. The media blitz for those movies was inescapable in Japan. Well, in Japan, Tom Cruise is probably the most the famous and recognizable Hollywood star outside of Johnny Depp, so you could imagine how often I had to watch Cruise fake-grinning his way through an interview with the Japanese media in the weeks leading up to the release of Ghost Protocol. I'm sure Tom thinks it was all worth it in the end, though, as this movie made bank. In fact, it is the highest-grossing Tom Cruise movie ever, a fact that made me do a double take (Top Gun?).
The Mission Impossible series is an interesting one for a variety of reasons. I've seen them all, but I couldn't tell you a single plot detail from any of them except this newest one. In Ghost Protocol, when the characters start talking about main character Ethan Hunt's wife, and Croatia, I nearly shook my head in amazement: Wait a second, this movie actually expects me to remember what happened in Mission Impossible 3? I don't think I can be blamed for failing to keep track of the events in this series. Every movie has been like a reboot, having little to do story-wise with it's predecessor. And each one has had a different director, making the 3 movies very distinct stylistically. The members of Ethan Hunt's team have been changing seemingly every movie, as well. The only real constant has been Cruise as Hunt. And I must say I find it somewhat amusing that this franchise, which has been so long-running and earned so much money, is based around a character that makes balsa wood look interesting. Ethan Hunt is truly the epitome of the generic action movie protoganist. He displays no unique or interesting characteristics, and his character hasn't really changed or developed at all in 4 (!) movies. It's pretty fitting that newcomer to the series Jeremy Renner is playing a character, Brandt, who is apparently being groomed as a successor to Tom Cruise when he is done with the series (which I hope doesn't happen: can't we agree to just stop making these when Cruise is done printing his money?). Because Brandt is just as generic as Hunt. It's somewhat confusing, given that I think Renner and Cruise are both very charismatic actors. Just not in this movie. Maybe it's the writing, maybe it's M.I. curse, or maybe these guys are just all too willing to sleepwalk through these kinds of movies in the name of cashing a fat check. I guess we'll never know.
In any case, one actor who does bring charisma to his role is Simon Pegg as Benji. At this point, the man is being typecast in a big way as the wisecracking smart-ass, but he is damn good at it, and he has a few good action moments in this one as well. Pegg isn't enough though to give the movie any real sense of the heart that it lacks. That's because, in addition to Renner and Cruise, the other member of the team, Jane Carter, is just as generic a character as her name would suggest. She has a few good moments in the beginning, including a great cat fight in Dubai, but about midway through the movie she just seems to forget how pissed off she is that her boyfriend was murdered a few days ago or whatever. Apparently keeping that thread alive constituted too much storyline for the makers of Ghost Protocol. Unfortunately, they were misguided in that aspect. Because this movie could have done with a lot more story. What little story it does have is so half-assed it wouldn't even make for a decent season of 24. Some guy wants a nuke, and there are some codes or something. Whatever, let's get to the action sequences.
And what action sequences they are. There are three or four sequences (including Cruise hanging from the Burj Khalifa) that completely save Ghost Protocol from being utterly irredeemable. The part where Cruise and his team break into the Kremlin is also really cool, if not completely laughable and unbelievable. Unfortunately, the parts of the movie where there is no action on screen are torture. There is little to no chemistry between the main actors with the notable exception of Pegg and Cruise, and I think that's just because Pegg is so good. Every plot progression is geared towards moving us to the next kick-ass action sequence, but there aren't nearly enough of them. And the story in general is just painfully generic and by the numbers. I was never entirely clear what the threat was, and perhaps most damningly, I didn't even care that it wasn't clear. When the movie ended anti-climatically, my response before I went on about my day was: Is that it? OK then. The movie wraps up with a ham-fisted Ving Rhames cameo, some nonsense about Cruise's supposedly-dead wife actually being alive, and then the characters disappear into the night with the unfortunate promise of future sequels and cash grabs. My only hope is that the director of the next movie can find a way to make Mission Impossible more compelling, or that maybe Cruise actually does get out of the way, and the series can start fresh, and maybe newer and better, with Renner or some other actor. And I'm sure Brad Bird will make some great live-action movies during his career. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them.
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