It’s been a while since we’ve seen Tom Cruise on the big screen. It was Valkyrie back in 2008 when I last saw him (I refuse to acknowledge Knight and Day) and he was actually pretty good in that, so I was fairly excited to see his latest action movie: Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol.
Now, I
have to admit, I’m not really big on the Mission Impossible movies.
They’re kind of the third place action movies behind the Bond and Bourne
flicks. And let’s face it there aren’t a whole lot of movie franchises
that have produced a fourth instalment that isn’t worse than watching
paint dry on the inside of your eyelids. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for example, that was fun.
You’d forgive me then for thinking Mission Impossible 4 would
also be rubbish before I went in then, but in actual fact this wasn’t
the case at all. Why? Because I knew Brad Bird was directing it. Yes,
the same Brad Bird who directed Pixar’s The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
Given his directing history you wouldn’t expect to find him directing
the latest Tom Cruise action movie, and yet here he is doing Ghost Protocol. I have to admit I was intrigued as to what direction he’d take the franchise.
And whether it’s down to Bird’s direction or not, Mission Impossible 4 is
actually a decent movie. It’s shot at a good pace, features a good
blend of action and humour, and has the ridiculous plot you’ve come to
expect from a movie called Mission Impossible.
My
memory is slightly vague when it comes to the Mission Impossible
franchise to be honest. At this point I’ve pretty much forgotten the
whole storyline, so I can’t reliably comment on how it compares to the
original trilogy, all I can do is look at it as a movie on its own,
which I think the makers wanted anyway judging by the film having Ghost Protocol outweighing the Mission Impossible title on all the marketing bumf.
As far as action movies go, Ghost Protocol is
a very decent one with an easy to follow plot and good hard-hitting
action scenes. There are scenes in Dubai at the world’s tallest
building: the Burj Khalifa where Cruise must scale the outside of the
building and back in a set time (cue the music); there are chase scenes
through sandstorms , fight scenes in elaborate car parks; it’s all very
good stuff.
One
thing about this movie that I can’t remember being true of the others is
that it incorporates a lot more humour into it. This is done largely by
Britain’s second biggest ginger export (after Rupert Grint of course)
Simon Pegg.
Pegg
isn’t exactly at his absolute best in this, but he does do a good job of
being the comic relief character. He plays the computer genius, the
bloke in all these kind of movies that stops lifts from working or turns
off security cameras. These generic characters are usually attempted to
be made out to be witty, and most of them fail. Ghost Protocol however, does not; Simon Pegg is definitely a good addition to the cast, contrary to my initial beliefs.
One
thing I find quite amusing about Simon Pegg’s addition though is that
the movie poster is going for the very same effect that Pegg and Frost
mocked on the poster for Hot Fuzz. The whole ‘let’s all walk
towards the camera wearing sunglasses’ effect. I found that pretty funny
when I first saw the film’s poster.
As for
the other members of the cast, we have inevitable eye candy in Paula
Patton and Tom Cruise’s useful associate in Jeremy Renner. Both of them
are fine enough, we get mere glimpses into their characters and so they
don’t really end up leaving much of an impression on you.
Tom
Cruise on the other hand, does a very good job. One thing I do know is
that he did all his own stunts, which is pretty impressive in today’s
world where every single actor cries off when asked to jump in a puddle.
Of
course it’s cool these days to dislike Tom Cruise but I don’t really
follow that line. He’s a good actor and I watch movies with him in it.
That’s pretty much my relationship with the guy so I don’t really care
what he gets up to in his private life, how many sofas he jumps up and
down on or how paranoid he is about his height. He’s a good actor, he’s
in many good movies, that’s all there is to it.
One
downside to this movie however is the plot, it’s a little weak.
Essentially a terrorist attempts to start a nuclear war between the
Russians and the Americans by firing missiles around the globe like a
deranged maniac. Obviously Ethan Hawke (that’s Cruise by the way) must
stop them, only he must do it without the help of his government as the
unit has been shut down: engage Ghost Protocol and all that jazz. Pretty
standard stuff, but it didn’t ruin the movie by being so.
In fact I
enjoyed it, I thought it was a very decent action movie with elements
of comedy and no horrible tacked on love storylines. Brad Bird does a
great job of directing and Cruise does a great job as the leading man.
Overall Mission Impossible 4 has
managed to break the curse of the fourth instalment. It’s an action
movie at its core and combines it with good scenarios and great
locations that are shot brilliantly. It’s not Bond, or Bourne but it’s
closer to them than I thought it would be.
Final Verdict: 3 Stars. The best movie starring Tom Cruise in 2011.
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