Abominable Snowcone
You know the drill: Stack the odds against veteran IMF agent Ethan Hunt and dangle him from a wire in a room or building no one’s supposed to be able to infiltrate. Have some clandestine evil threaten the global balance of power while Hunt’s own superiors disavow knowledge of his effort to stop it. Yes, Tom Cruise is back as Hunt for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL, the third sequel to the 1996 film adaptation of the popular sixties spy program.
In case you’ve forgotten, the first MISSION (directed by Brian DePalma) had Hunt ferreting IMF moles to clear his name after a botched operation in Prague kills his entire team. The second MISSION (directed by action guru John Woo) followed Ethan in a race against time to secure an antidote for a lethal virus. M:I:III (directed by J.J. Abrams) called a semi-retired Hunt back to stop a black market arms dealer who kidnaps his fiancée. Each MISSION boasts at least one memorable set piece wherein a heavily-harnessed Hunt rappels, jumps, or is lowered into peril—like a spider on a silken strand. Rather than go back to formula, GHOST PROTOCOL shakes it up—like a pressurized can of soda—by suspending X-Treme actor Cruise outside the world’s tallest building. We’ve seen bits of this ballsy vertigo-inducing sequence in trailers, and I’m sure others besides me wondered, “Cool! But is there a decent popcorn movie behind all this?”
Indeed there is. Starting with a bodacious prison break and climaxing with a bone-crushing, beat-the-clock fistfight in an automated parking garage, GHOST PROTOCOL brims with breathless action. There’s nary any character development or psychological gravitas—but who has time for that when a madman’s about to launch the ICBM that will start WWIII?
Hunt and his ragtag team go rogue after they’re framed for a devastating explosion at the Kremlin; tension between Washington and Moscow hasn’t been this hot since the Cuban missile crisis. Ethan’s boss serendipitously turns up in Red Square to inform him they’re on their own, but things are so hectic that even this cursory, dead-of-night car rendezvous is interrupted by gunfire. Between the real terrorists and the Russian authorities (who think Hunt is the culprit), our heroes have their work cut out for them: Stop Goldfinger…er, Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) before he taps into a forgotten Cold War satellite with his stolen missile code. Failure means the incipient vaporization of millions of Americans and possible nuclear Armageddon; the U.S. will assume its old enemy has retaliated for the Kremlin attack and launch a counterstrike.
Tech-savvy Benji (Simon Pegg), sultry Jane Carter (Paula Patton), and mysterious “analyst” Brandt (Jeremy Renner) help Ethan stage a subterfuge in Dubai that leads to the film’s harrowing highlight—Cruise’s skywalk outside the 130th floor of the majestic Burj Khalifa—and a gripping footrace (and car chase) through a sandstorm.
Director Brad Bird acquits himself marvelously in his first-ever live actioner, applying McCarthy-era fears and a comic book sense of hyperrealism (IRON GIANT, THE INCREDIBLES) to a convincing, post-911 espionage thriller with results that’ll leave theatre floors littered with cuticles. Shot partly in IMAX, the loud-but-visually stunning film contains wondrous, panoramic overviews of exotic locales (Budapest, Mumbai, San Francisco) and their distinctive architectures. The dizzying aerial cinematography in and around the Burj Khalifa will have viewers gripping their armrests to make sure they’re still safely grounded; think DIE HARD’s Nakatomi Tower gone exponential (Cruise goes barefoot during another gambit). The writers ramp the wow factor with plenty of 007-inspired gadgets—including a camera-eye contact lens, a prosthetic arm, magnetic suit, electrostatic sticky-gloves, and a nifty iPad-powered screen that simulates interior environments. They didn’t forgo the funny, either; Pegg delivers a couple deadpanned punch-lines that counterweight Ethan’s steely seriousness quite nicely. The story also features nods to the TV series of old—like references to a criminal “Syndicate,” and an outdated IMF telephone that doesn’t self-destruct in five seconds, prompting Hunt to give it a Fonzie fist-thwack. The levity keeps us from bailing when Hunt’s roller coaster-crusade clatters between the crests.
On the downside, the picture lacks a sense of personal involvement on the part of the secret agents. Without Philip Seymour-Hoffman endangering his wife, Ethan comports himself with a cool, calculating detachment that allows him to take serious beatings without sustaining their concomitant injuries. GHOST PROTOCOL finds the near-50 year old in full-on TERMINATOR mode—running, jumping, kicking, and punching without becoming too winded—and one ponders why Hunt and his fugitive friends don’t just walk away from the job. It’s actually a relief when we’re afforded glimpses of Ethan’s humanity, like when his jaw drops upon learning he must scale the Burj to access a computer server. Patton’s secret agent is smolderingly attractive, if shallowly drawn—but Renner manages depth with his guilt-ridden character. It’ll be interesting to see how much maneuvering room he’s given as THE AVENGERS’ expert archer, Hawkeye.
- Longtime AIBN reader and Tom Cruise aficionado odo19 was lucky enough to meet the man himself a few years back
Just the top half?
FAWWWWWWWWK,
http://www.twitvid.com/AMDF4
I don’t know about anyone else, but the Zimmer music sting at the end of the TDKR prologue always gets my dick rock hard.
It’s always weird when someone breaks the fourth wall.
Cruise needs to come back with a hit movie or he’ll be box office poison. I liked MI-3, give me more of thye same and I’ll be happy.
Yeah I’ve been emailing the shit outta my therapist about this, I’ll just paste all of it below and be done with it. This doesn’t make any real sense, just random bursts of rage from the past 24 hours.
Please don’t bring this movie up to me ever again.
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God, fuck you for bringing it up.
Awful in every imaginable way.
Worst climax I’ve seen in an action movie in awhile….nice car port Pixar whiz bang shit.
Pathetic villain…seriously some random 70 year old Russian fuck beating the shit outta Cruise??
Renner floating around in a magnetic suit…
Pegg is the Jar Jar of the Mission Impossible series now. 90% of his stupid fucking ‘jokes’ made me cringe.
Laughably pointless drama….
No masks.
So much shit happening at the same time, zero tension, zero emotional gravity….just pointless and dull.
The reason the marketing is 90% Dubai climb…its the only decent scene in the fucking movie.
Shit plays like some worthless I SPY action comedy no one cares about.
Fucking sad.
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The score was totally Bird telling Giapunto to replicate that 60s spy shit from Incredibles. Hated it. FUCK THEM. AND FUCK YOU FOR BOTHERING ME.
Worthless fucking dipshits. My God I gotta puke.
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Well yeah…nothing works and no one is very good at what they do. And zero tension comes from this. Its amazing.
It feels like there’s so much pointless shit left over from previous drafts that used to mean something….like uhhh what the fuck is the point of the Russian investigator? He seriously exists to show up in Dubai for 10 seconds and get thrown off an escalator, then show up at the end with some stupid fucking joke about Cruise going to the hospital. I liked that character better in Hitman when he was played by Dougray Scott.
And the worthless arms dealer that looks like Lars Von Trier??? Uhhh…why? So he could tip off the investigator and somehow tie in Cruise’s buddy he broke out at the beginning. Sooooo that was the whole purpose of the fucking guy he breaks out??? To bring Cruise to Von Trier, so Von Trier can tip off the cop and cop can pop up at the end to make a joke???
WOW!!!! GREAT WRITING!!!
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There’s literally an hour of absolutely pointless shit that can be cut.
And yeah, Cruise and Renner beat the shit out of anyone that comes their way, but the big finale is the two of them battling these totally fucking ordinary schmoes? Literally just two one on one fights that don’t mean shit. It’s some 70 year old ordinary looking fuck somehow able to hold his own against Cruise, AFTER EVERYTHING WE’VE SEEN THIS MOTHERFUCKER DO IN THIS SERIES. And he outruns him earlier in the film…..they’re fucking sprinting through Dubai and somehow he can’t keep pace with grandpa? Of course at the time we don’t know it’s grandpa because he’s the only guy in the fucking movie that gets to use a mask….and he disguises himself as the other bad guy, which is never explained. It’s a fucking disgrace. The one defining Mission Impossible thing that makes it unique and sets it apart from all the other bullshit these days, and of course pussy-boy Bird doesn’t have the balls to use it, so instead we get the hobbit in a fucking flying suit???
The more I think of it, the bigger fucking abortion I realize it was. What the fuck kinda director watches that shit and feels good about releasing it when the first 3 films exist? Has he ever seen a Mission Impossible movie?
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Nothing made sense. And nothing mattered. It was just plain fucking stupid and the worst part is, Bird stripped it of all the ‘cool factor’ the previous films had. Nothing looked slick or cool. It was just fucking dorky.
Even Cruise and Paula walking into the Indian party was lame cause the photography was so shitty and the song playing sounded like some fucking 90s stock music.
The strength of MI’s has always been the personal stakes for Ethan. Here, there’s nothing like that. We don’t give a fuck why he’s doing what he’s doing. So now not only is it not cool, ugly looking, and dull, its just fucking generic military missions to prevent missile launches??? WOW!!!
So the tone is like some bizarre parody, but the crux of the plot is like a fucking Tom Clancy movie. Great.
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It’s baffling how much stupidly pointless shit there is that just bloats the fucking length of it and adds nothing.
Like that stupid fucking wall-screen decoy thing???
Think about it, pace-wise and running time wise, Cruise could’ve just come down the hallway, walks past the security guy in his general outfit, security guy asks him for ID and Cruise does some kung-fu shit and knocks the fool out, then busts into that room looking for the disc things and finds they’re missing, then runs out and the place fucking explodes and the whole thing happens in an intense couple of minutes. Instead we get this big elaborate contraption they have to slide down a fucking hallway to fool the security guard….for what? What was the point of making a hallway decoy as opposed to just knocking him out? It was seriously just to give Pegg like 7 fucking minutes to crack jokes and walk in front of the camera and be goofy?? Wow. Miserable fucking piece of shit.
One of the worst in awhile.
I’d say overall it’s a worse film than Drive. It’s monumentally stupid and un-cool and disgraceful to the series.
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Yeah, great forced drama with the whole ‘Renner was kinda responsible for the death of Ethan’s wife’ bullshit. That exists so we can get 5 minutes of half-ass tension between them and like everything in this fucking turd, there’s zero pay-off in the end, just a….HEY! IT’S COOL, MY BITCH ISN’T DEAD…..WE JUST CAN’T BE TOGETHER CAUSE IT’S TOO DANGEROUS, SO SHE’S HANGIN’ OUT IN SEATTLE, BUT NO ONE IN IMF CAN EVER KNOW, EXCEPT ALL OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS I HAD MEET ME IN SEATTLE RIGHT ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET FROM HER FUCKING JOB!!! AND WHOA…WHY THE FUCK IS VING RHAMES HERE? OHHH YEAH, SO HE CAN REMIND EVERYONE THE PIECE OF SHIT THEY JUST SLEPT THROUGH IS A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIE BUT HE WAS REPLACED BY PEGG BECAUSE HE’S FAR TOO SERIOUS FOR A MOVIE THIS ZANY!!!!
Soulless…piece…of….SHIT.
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It’s one of those things where if it was it’s own standalone thing with difference people and just some random fucking action comedy called ACTION FORCE, yeah maybe….whatever…I’d still bitch about the same things, but I wouldn’t really care. Being an MI movie, it shit all over the perfect class-act close of 3 and drug Cruise out of the grave just to embarrass him. It’s really a shame.
Bird needs to seriously back the fuck out of live-action, or somebody needs to seriously take a bat to his fucking albino face.
Now never speak to me about this fucking thing again. I’m done. I gotta take my pills.
Vaya Con Bale.
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So you hated this but liked that FOX pilot looking piece of shit MI:3? Sometimes I just don’t get you.
PSH man, greatest villain of the series…
I’d love to watch him beat the shit out of you.
‘Tis true. The movie might have been worth a shit if he had been in it more and hadn’t gone out like a bitch.
Also is Ving Rhames in this bitch? I haven’t seen him in any of the ads.
He shows up at the end and it’s pathetic. Like everything else, there’s no fucking point. He just slaps hands with Ethan and fucks off. It’s like they wanted to remind us, ohhh yeah…by the way, this is a Mission Impossible movie. I mentioned it above.
so bringing up MI4 again, you didn’t like it did you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY-03vYYAjA
I don’t get what you are saying, did you like it or not?
I’m just glad Ethan didn’t care that his ex-wife was now into fucking fat black men.
Just saw it. Pretty fucking terrible. Can we finally retire this useless fucking franchise? Been nothing but shit since part 1. Other than Paulson’s tits, the drawing on the hand gag, and some of the Dubai shit this was a fucking turd.
Stunt hated it too. Funny thing is Rotten Tomatoes had it at 95 percent fresh or something crazy like that. But, you guys know I’ll take the professional opinion over the critics any day of the week.
I have to admit, I’m with Abom. I fucking loved it! Although, Danny’s got a point about the end — I wasn’t too sold on that. So much for the plan to hand the series over to Renner, though. Cruise is definitely going to be involved in the next one, it’s a dead cert.
I can see Danny already standing in line for his ticket to M:I-5 …
I kind of wonder if they just fucking failed as the how at least that would’ve fit with the rest of the film. If it could have set up an epic MI5?
Yeah, Koutch, I was wondering about that myself. However, I can’t say I’m complaining too much because Mr. Cruise definitely brought his A game to this movie, and they’d be insane to drop him from the series at this point. The Burj Khalifa sequence alone shows what a fucking professional he is! Renner’s time will come.