← Back to Reviews
in
#538 - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Brad Bird, 2011
A spy goes on a mission to prevent a terrorist cell from initiating a global nuclear conflict.
Despite being apathetic enough about the franchise to miss the third installment in theatres and feel less impressed by the first two films in retrospect, I still ended up seeing the fourth [i]M:I/i] film in theatres (apparently because The Adventures of Tintin was sold out, according to an old Movie Tab post). It managed to impress me reasonably well to the point where I was starting to think of it as my favourite film in the franchise. Now that I've had a chance to watch (or re-watch) all five films, I still reckon that I'd be willing to hold up Ghost Protocol as my favourite film in the series. Making a fourth installment in any franchise is always a risky proposition that is more likely to miss than hit (where critically, commercially, or both), and the employment of animation veteran Brad Bird seems to paradoxically come across as both a safe choice and an unpredictable one. Bird's cartoon sensibilities do end up proving a strong addition to a franchise that is built upon the creation of implausible yet thrilling sequences of action and suspense. This time around Tom Cruise's protagonist has to get bailed out of prison in order to conduct a mission to prevent the theft of nuclear launch codes. This seemingly simple plan is complicated by his being framed for a terrorist act and his whole organisation being disavowed, leaving him with a team of three other agents (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner) with whom to save the day.
Granted, in a lot of ways Ghost Protocol falls prey to a lot of the usual flaws that have plagued the series. The plot at least tries to change things up by largely abandoning the paranoia angle from previous films and thus cuts out all the usual betrayals and double-crosses. For the most part, it does stick to some recognisable staples of the series for better or worse, such as having Cruise being pursued by well-intentioned investigators or the heroes being made to come up with convoluted solutions to their problems. It still has a bit of trouble staying consistently captivating and peaks around the halfway/two-thirds mark as the film's already-thin conflict grows even thinner. Characterisation is generally pretty haphazard, whether it's Michael Nyqvist's unremarkable turn as an extremist antagonist or the tragic back-story that's supposed to define newcomer Renner as a sufficiently complicated character. Pegg is brought back to serve as comic relief and he definitely provides well enough in that regard, though he doesn't get much of an arc beyond his role as a rookie field agent trying to do a good job. Patton does what she can with an extremely straightforward revenge sub-plot that is at least handled solidly enough to make up for her eventually having to play honey-trap as the team's sole female member. I'm also grateful that this marks the first film in the franchise that didn't try to shoehorn in a romantic sub-plot for Cruise, though it does make a handful of references to his fiancée from the third film that I probably could have done without. If nothing else, you can always depend on Cruise's combination of natural charisma and willingness to get physical for his craft to carry a character that has persisted throughout five films without all that much going on in the way of personal development.
Cruise's daredevil antics here definitely make for some genuinely captivating action; the sequence where he must climb up the outside of the Burj-Khalifa using nothing but a pair of high-tech adhesive gloves is something that practically demanded to be seen in theatres yet still feels appropriately tense and stunning during a re-watch on a smaller screen. While the first film's notorious cable-drop scene is easily the franchise's most iconic moment, I honestly think that this scene gives it a serious run for its money. It's not alone; there is the comically ingenious scene where Cruise and Pegg must carry out an infiltration using a giant computer screen to simulate an empty corridor or another scene that takes place amidst the constantly-churning machinery of a high-tech car park. The skyscraper climb casts a long shadow over all of them and the fact that it happens halfway through the film does make the third act feel somewhat anti-climatic as a result, but not enough so to completely derail the film. Bird's visual style definitely feels suited to the grand scale and manic energy as he and cinematographer Robert Elswit work well together to create good-looking shots of what's happening. Bird's presence also made me note just how much the bombastic score by Pixar regular Michael Giacchino sounded extremely similar to his work on The Incredibles, but that still felt appropriate considering how that film paid so much homage to '60s spy stuff like Mission: Impossible in the first place.
While it's far from perfect, I definitely think that Ghost Protocol gets more things right than wrong in trying to keep its fairly simple concept fresh. It manages to make all three of its predecessors feel like rough drafts as it evens out some of the major flaws from those films (though not all of them, unfortunately). At the very least, it feels like a very conscious attempt to provide a vastly diferent experience through constantly subverted expectations; the infamous face-masks that were awfully prevalent throughout the series are conspicuously rare this time around. There's also the fact that, despite the focus on a team-based dynamic that differentiates it from other major spy franchises, it's pretty noticeable how much of the actual tension and excitement tends to derive from sequences involving Cruise being on his own. That being said, by trimming the narrative fat and emphasising the fantastic challenges posed against the small (but reasonably well-developed) handful of heroes, the series seems to have finally found its groove. This much is pretty much confirmed by how much follow-up installment Rogue Nation managed to stick to the same cinematic formula with all its highs and lows (great stunts, not-so-great characters, etc.). Though I may need to give the first film yet another chance, I still consider Ghost Protocol to be the high point in a very erratic franchise and recommend it to action fans of every type.
Brad Bird, 2011
A spy goes on a mission to prevent a terrorist cell from initiating a global nuclear conflict.
Despite being apathetic enough about the franchise to miss the third installment in theatres and feel less impressed by the first two films in retrospect, I still ended up seeing the fourth [i]M:I/i] film in theatres (apparently because The Adventures of Tintin was sold out, according to an old Movie Tab post). It managed to impress me reasonably well to the point where I was starting to think of it as my favourite film in the franchise. Now that I've had a chance to watch (or re-watch) all five films, I still reckon that I'd be willing to hold up Ghost Protocol as my favourite film in the series. Making a fourth installment in any franchise is always a risky proposition that is more likely to miss than hit (where critically, commercially, or both), and the employment of animation veteran Brad Bird seems to paradoxically come across as both a safe choice and an unpredictable one. Bird's cartoon sensibilities do end up proving a strong addition to a franchise that is built upon the creation of implausible yet thrilling sequences of action and suspense. This time around Tom Cruise's protagonist has to get bailed out of prison in order to conduct a mission to prevent the theft of nuclear launch codes. This seemingly simple plan is complicated by his being framed for a terrorist act and his whole organisation being disavowed, leaving him with a team of three other agents (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner) with whom to save the day.
Granted, in a lot of ways Ghost Protocol falls prey to a lot of the usual flaws that have plagued the series. The plot at least tries to change things up by largely abandoning the paranoia angle from previous films and thus cuts out all the usual betrayals and double-crosses. For the most part, it does stick to some recognisable staples of the series for better or worse, such as having Cruise being pursued by well-intentioned investigators or the heroes being made to come up with convoluted solutions to their problems. It still has a bit of trouble staying consistently captivating and peaks around the halfway/two-thirds mark as the film's already-thin conflict grows even thinner. Characterisation is generally pretty haphazard, whether it's Michael Nyqvist's unremarkable turn as an extremist antagonist or the tragic back-story that's supposed to define newcomer Renner as a sufficiently complicated character. Pegg is brought back to serve as comic relief and he definitely provides well enough in that regard, though he doesn't get much of an arc beyond his role as a rookie field agent trying to do a good job. Patton does what she can with an extremely straightforward revenge sub-plot that is at least handled solidly enough to make up for her eventually having to play honey-trap as the team's sole female member. I'm also grateful that this marks the first film in the franchise that didn't try to shoehorn in a romantic sub-plot for Cruise, though it does make a handful of references to his fiancée from the third film that I probably could have done without. If nothing else, you can always depend on Cruise's combination of natural charisma and willingness to get physical for his craft to carry a character that has persisted throughout five films without all that much going on in the way of personal development.
Cruise's daredevil antics here definitely make for some genuinely captivating action; the sequence where he must climb up the outside of the Burj-Khalifa using nothing but a pair of high-tech adhesive gloves is something that practically demanded to be seen in theatres yet still feels appropriately tense and stunning during a re-watch on a smaller screen. While the first film's notorious cable-drop scene is easily the franchise's most iconic moment, I honestly think that this scene gives it a serious run for its money. It's not alone; there is the comically ingenious scene where Cruise and Pegg must carry out an infiltration using a giant computer screen to simulate an empty corridor or another scene that takes place amidst the constantly-churning machinery of a high-tech car park. The skyscraper climb casts a long shadow over all of them and the fact that it happens halfway through the film does make the third act feel somewhat anti-climatic as a result, but not enough so to completely derail the film. Bird's visual style definitely feels suited to the grand scale and manic energy as he and cinematographer Robert Elswit work well together to create good-looking shots of what's happening. Bird's presence also made me note just how much the bombastic score by Pixar regular Michael Giacchino sounded extremely similar to his work on The Incredibles, but that still felt appropriate considering how that film paid so much homage to '60s spy stuff like Mission: Impossible in the first place.
While it's far from perfect, I definitely think that Ghost Protocol gets more things right than wrong in trying to keep its fairly simple concept fresh. It manages to make all three of its predecessors feel like rough drafts as it evens out some of the major flaws from those films (though not all of them, unfortunately). At the very least, it feels like a very conscious attempt to provide a vastly diferent experience through constantly subverted expectations; the infamous face-masks that were awfully prevalent throughout the series are conspicuously rare this time around. There's also the fact that, despite the focus on a team-based dynamic that differentiates it from other major spy franchises, it's pretty noticeable how much of the actual tension and excitement tends to derive from sequences involving Cruise being on his own. That being said, by trimming the narrative fat and emphasising the fantastic challenges posed against the small (but reasonably well-developed) handful of heroes, the series seems to have finally found its groove. This much is pretty much confirmed by how much follow-up installment Rogue Nation managed to stick to the same cinematic formula with all its highs and lows (great stunts, not-so-great characters, etc.). Though I may need to give the first film yet another chance, I still consider Ghost Protocol to be the high point in a very erratic franchise and recommend it to action fans of every type.