Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

 

   2011

  Director Brad Bird

The Mission: Impossible franchise has long since cast off any pretence it may once have had about being anything more than mindless entertainment. Brian De Palma’s inaugural 1996 romp was a genuine spy thriller filled with twists, turns and nail-chomping suspense that complimented the occasional outbreak of bitch-slapping violence like a glass of fine wine*. Next, in 2000 John Woo brought his balletic and melodramatic gunplay to what was essentially a cheesy romantic thriller played out amidst a world of espionage, nice hair and Dougray Scott shouting a lot. But J. J. Abrams’ third instalment in 2007 and now Brad Bird (Ratatouille, 2007) in 2011 with Ghost Protocol have given up the, uh, well, ghost, so to speak. Intelligent espionage? Gone. Romance? Forgotten. But excitement? With a man like Tom Cruise hurtling across the screen every few minutes, how could you ever lose it?!

Framed for a bombing of the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt’s (Cruise) IMF team goes rogue in order to track down the real perpetrators of the crime and clear their name.

There is no getting away from it. Ghost Protocol features a standout sequence that blows the rest of the 135 minutes clear out of the water. For some confusing an irrelevant reason, Hunt is forced to discover his inner Spiderman, as he scales the outside of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest building in the world, equipped nothing but a pair of extremely fancy looking and occasionally magnetic oven gloves. It’s an astonishingly visceral sequence. Even if vertigo is not an ailment you often suffer, the sight of Mr Cruise slipping and sliding up and down the column (wait, what?), as Bird’s camera whirls around to find the angle to best bring last night’s dinner bubbling back up to the surface, will have you similarly convulsing in your seat like a cold turkey Pete Doherty.

Outside of this spectacle, however, there is very little to separate Ghost Protocol from its youngest predecessor. It is fluffy, low on plot, but still rather enjoyable. In Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Abrams’ instalment did at least provide an engaging villain; Bird’s addition to the series does not. Michael Nyqvist’s (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009) terrorist is simply not a threat. He is a tedious screen presence. But he is only one of a group of poorly characterized players. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, 2009) is once again stuck in what initially seems to be a rather intriguing role as IMF agent Brandt, but nothing ever transpires and he is left to rot in wasteful monotony. Simon Pegg’s (Paul, 2011) inclusion back in 2007 was an indication of the cartoonish route the filmmakers were going with Mission: Impossible, and his return here as comic relief agent Benji is the icing on the family friendly cake. Cruise’s Hunt is the only character with any history and, therefore, the only person in the film with whom an audience can become emotionally involved.

Ghost Protocol is the weakest entry of the series so far … just. It is a far different experience from its two oldest brothers, and shares much of the same light, breezy DNA as its closest sibling. But it is fun. Paul Greengrass’ Bourne films obviously set a high standard that Mr Bond has been scrambling hard to reach; so it is actually rather nice to see spy film that ignores the allure of parkour and punching people in the face really, really hard, preferring instead the classic approach of gadgets, tense infiltration, silly masks, crappy McGuffins and Tom Cruise running.

*** / *****

* I don’t even like wine.