Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (12A)
- Starring: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Josh Holloway, Léa Seydoux, Michael Nyqvist, Anil Kapoor, Darren Shahlavi
- Director: Brad Bird
- Year: 2011
When a bomb destroys the Kremlin, the IMF is blamed and its members labelled as terrorists intent on inciting a global nuclear war. Ethan Hunt and his team must unravel the conspiracy.
Reviews
Alison Rowat's Review
Just in time for a Dickens of an austerity Christmas comes Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible 4, a slick, exhilarating, blow the budget spectacular with the fatal flaw that it doesn’t know when to quit while it is ahead.
I saw the film at the opening this week of the new Imax screen at Cineworld in Edinburgh. Between Tom Cruise hurling himself off the tallest building in the world, biblical dust storms and denture-rattling explosions, Imax is the way to go with this one if you can. And no, the giant screen doesn’t make the Tomster look any taller. Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles) is a double Oscar winner, not a performer of miracles.
Like every other Mission: Impossible, the story is a riot of nonsense with lots of boys’ toys and stunts to distract the viewer from the more obvious absurdities. In short, the perfect popcorn movie over Christmas. This time, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his crew of Jeremy Renner’s enigmatic analyst, Simon Pegg’s dorky tech and Paula Patton’s kick-ass agent (who also looks rather nice in a dress), are fighting to keep the world safe from yet another megalomaniac.
Enough of all that. What you want to see are the stunts. The Cruise missile still has it when it comes to the action scenes, with Bird proving himself to have a great eye for the big moment. The scenes at the Burj Khalifa are doozies.
Just a pity, then, that that no-one involved called a halt to proceedings earlier. On and on and on it goes, like a marathon runner hitting the wall. Mission: Impossible becomes Mission: Impossible to Sit Through Without Meal and Toilet Breaks. Still, that jump...