Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol review

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE- GHOST PROTOCOL: THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER…OF THE HOLIDAYS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: A (3 ½ stars)

Reviewed December 2011

PARAMOUNT PICTURES, SKYDANCE ENTERTAINMENT, AND BAD ROBOT

Tom Cruise kicking butt as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol

Your Mission, should you choose to accept it…

Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible series, Top Gun, War of the Worlds) returns as secret agent, Ethan Hunt in the fourth installment of the Mission: Impossible series, Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol, directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles) and produced by Cruise and Mission: Impossible III director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Super 8, Star Trek, Cloverfield). This is a rare fourth installment that doesn’t have a sour aftertaste and it’s the first Mission: Impossible movie to have segments of the film shot with IMAX cameras which definitely adds a whole new experience to the movie.

            The IMF (Impossible Missions Force) is shut down after a bomb destroys the Kremlin, which causes Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his new team, Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg-Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul) to go rogue to clear their organization’s name. It turns out the bomb attack on the Kremlin was caused by a Russian organization led by Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist).

The bomb attack is nothing compared to what Hendricks really has planned. He’s planning to blow up half the world by unleashing a nuclear missile. During a little joyride through the city, Hunt’s colleague Luther Stickell (Tom Wilkinson-The Green Hornet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Debt) explains to Hunt about the bomb attack which the IMF was framed for, while the president initiated “Ghost Protocol” he also tells him if Hunt’s team is caught by the Russians while they’re infiltrating their “base” they will be branded terrorists out to insight global nuclear war.

Ethan and his team must infiltrate Hendricks’ base and stop him from unleashing the missile. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

The movie had exciting action sequences, gadgets, and spectacular IMAX scenes. Particularly the scene where Tom Cruise is climbing up the Burj Khalifa with magnetic gloves-- a scene that will give you chills when watching the IMAX version of the movie. The gloves Ethan Hunt used during that scene were cool but his jet and car in the movie were just plain amazing.

Though the movie’s plot is written a little thin and tends to be predictable at times, it’s still a great action movie with plenty of excitement and thrills to satisfy fans of the franchise. The IMAX version has 30 thrilling minutes of select footage shot with IMAX cameras, so a lot of the scenes stretched beyond normal movie theaters.

            It may not be better than the 1996 original Mission: Impossible but Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol is slightly better than the second and third installments of the series (The second and third Mission: Impossible movies are not terrible but they’re not as good as the original or Ghost Protocol), it still delivered the action and excitement of all three films plus add in the gripping IMAX segments and that’s Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol.

THIS REVIEW WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 5 SECONDS!