Luckily for Tom Cruise, 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' is one of his finest action flicks, just what's needed to potentially restore some of this fallen star's box-office bankability.
For director Brad Bird, though, the fourth 'Mission Impossible', rock solid as it is, ranks only as his second-best action movie, after the animated smash 'The Incredibles'.
Cruise may be the star here, but Bird's the story, a director who's only making his fourth movie and, remarkably, just his first live-action feature. This is the best of the 'Mission Impossible' movies, far better than Brian De Palma's original, No. 2 by John Woo and even the franchise's previous high with No. 3 by J.J. Abrams, who stuck around as producer on this one.
Those three filmmakers had years and years of action stuff behind them with real, live actors. Yet along comes Bird to show that the enormous talent behind his Academy Award winners 'The Incredibles' and 'Ratatouille' and his acclaimed cartoon adventure 'The Iron Giant' transfers mighty nicely from animation to the real world.
Granted, this is the real world, 'Mission Impossible'-style, where Cruise's missions and stunts truly are impossible by the laws of physics and normal, plausible storytelling constraints. But Bird applies the anything-can-happen limitlessness of cartoons and just goes for it, creating some thrilling, dizzying, amazing action sequences.
If you have the slightest fear of heights, grip the arm rests tightly and press both feet flatly to the floor during Cruise's attempt to scale the world's tallest building; even safe in your seat, an unnerving feeling of vertigo is bound to result as you stare down from the 130th floor.
For all the complexity of the action and gimmicks, Bird and screenwriters Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum (executive producers on Abrams' 'Alias') wisely tell a simple, good-guys-against-bad-guys story. They keep Cruise surrounded by a tight, capable supporting cast in Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton and Simon Pegg, who co-starred in 'Mission: Impossible III'.
The movie starts with a clever jailbreak by Cruise's Ethan Hunt, stuck in a Moscow prison for reasons unexplained until late in the story, then serves up an opening-credit montage fondly reminiscent of the old 'Mission: Impossible' TV show.
Once free, Ethan is dispatched to infiltrate the Kremlin along with Impossible Missions Force agents Jane Carter (Patton) and Benji Dunn (Pegg). But it's all a setup by madman Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who sets off a devastating explosion at the Kremlin to cover his theft of a Russian nuclear launch device and manages to finger Ethan's team for the blast.
With US-Russian tension at its worst since the Cuban missile crisis, the threat that's always hung over the IMF team comes to pass: the secretary (Tom Wilkinson) disavows knowledge of their actions, leaving Hunt and his comrades on their own as they try to clear their names and stop Hendricks from instigating nuclear war.
Joining them is Wilkinson's aide, William Brandt (Renner), a guy who takes to field work a little too easily to be the desk-jockey analyst he claims he is.
Cruise looks shaggy, and sure, we could blame his bad haircut on the fact that Ethan's just out of prison. But it doesn't help an aging screen idol to look so unkempt; the 'Mission: Impossible' world routinely defies reality, so would it have been so far-fetched for Ethan to stop by a salon before heading back into action?
'Ghost Protocol' ends with a talky epilogue that feels tacked-on and trite, though it offers a couple of cameos from 'Mission' past.
Whatever the movie's shortcomings, director Bird more than compensates with a bullet train of action and an arsenal of cool gadgets. Maybe making cartoons has expanded his conception of what's possible in a live film.
Bird does it so well, you don't really care how impossible it all is.
Rating:
Indian Express: 3 and 1/2 star
NDTV India: 3 star (out of 4)
For director Brad Bird, though, the fourth 'Mission Impossible', rock solid as it is, ranks only as his second-best action movie, after the animated smash 'The Incredibles'.
Cruise may be the star here, but Bird's the story, a director who's only making his fourth movie and, remarkably, just his first live-action feature. This is the best of the 'Mission Impossible' movies, far better than Brian De Palma's original, No. 2 by John Woo and even the franchise's previous high with No. 3 by J.J. Abrams, who stuck around as producer on this one.
Those three filmmakers had years and years of action stuff behind them with real, live actors. Yet along comes Bird to show that the enormous talent behind his Academy Award winners 'The Incredibles' and 'Ratatouille' and his acclaimed cartoon adventure 'The Iron Giant' transfers mighty nicely from animation to the real world.
Granted, this is the real world, 'Mission Impossible'-style, where Cruise's missions and stunts truly are impossible by the laws of physics and normal, plausible storytelling constraints. But Bird applies the anything-can-happen limitlessness of cartoons and just goes for it, creating some thrilling, dizzying, amazing action sequences.
If you have the slightest fear of heights, grip the arm rests tightly and press both feet flatly to the floor during Cruise's attempt to scale the world's tallest building; even safe in your seat, an unnerving feeling of vertigo is bound to result as you stare down from the 130th floor.
For all the complexity of the action and gimmicks, Bird and screenwriters Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum (executive producers on Abrams' 'Alias') wisely tell a simple, good-guys-against-bad-guys story. They keep Cruise surrounded by a tight, capable supporting cast in Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton and Simon Pegg, who co-starred in 'Mission: Impossible III'.
The movie starts with a clever jailbreak by Cruise's Ethan Hunt, stuck in a Moscow prison for reasons unexplained until late in the story, then serves up an opening-credit montage fondly reminiscent of the old 'Mission: Impossible' TV show.
Once free, Ethan is dispatched to infiltrate the Kremlin along with Impossible Missions Force agents Jane Carter (Patton) and Benji Dunn (Pegg). But it's all a setup by madman Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who sets off a devastating explosion at the Kremlin to cover his theft of a Russian nuclear launch device and manages to finger Ethan's team for the blast.
With US-Russian tension at its worst since the Cuban missile crisis, the threat that's always hung over the IMF team comes to pass: the secretary (Tom Wilkinson) disavows knowledge of their actions, leaving Hunt and his comrades on their own as they try to clear their names and stop Hendricks from instigating nuclear war.
Joining them is Wilkinson's aide, William Brandt (Renner), a guy who takes to field work a little too easily to be the desk-jockey analyst he claims he is.
Cruise looks shaggy, and sure, we could blame his bad haircut on the fact that Ethan's just out of prison. But it doesn't help an aging screen idol to look so unkempt; the 'Mission: Impossible' world routinely defies reality, so would it have been so far-fetched for Ethan to stop by a salon before heading back into action?
'Ghost Protocol' ends with a talky epilogue that feels tacked-on and trite, though it offers a couple of cameos from 'Mission' past.
Whatever the movie's shortcomings, director Bird more than compensates with a bullet train of action and an arsenal of cool gadgets. Maybe making cartoons has expanded his conception of what's possible in a live film.
Bird does it so well, you don't really care how impossible it all is.
Rating:
Indian Express: 3 and 1/2 star
NDTV India: 3 star (out of 4)
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