The Password is Swordfish

If Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol had been released this past summer, critics and audiences alike would have named it the best film of the season. It’s genuinely exciting, clever, and full of stunts executed with such technical prowess that I couldn’t tell what was a practical stunt and what was assisted by computer graphics. Brad Bird, who is now a perfect four-for-four in creating brilliant cinematic entertainment, has created a world that showcases the strengths of its star, Tom Cruise, who at this point has to be considered the greatest action movie star of all time because of his remarkable consistency in selecting terrific vehicles to headline. Furthermore, it deserves to be seen in IMAX, not because of the underwhelming Dark Knight Rises prologue, but because no filmmaker has utilized so many epic shots that merit the IMAX ticket price. The Dubai sequence alone is worth the price in this case.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is in a Moscow prison at movie’s beginning– but not for long. Breaking him out are Agents Carter (Paula Patton) and Dunn (Simon Pegg, from the previous installment of the series). They need Hunt’s assistance in obtaining information about a person of interest identified as “Cobalt.” Their first impossible mission is to break into the Kremlin to steal documents about Cobalt. However, when that mission goes horribly awry, the president initiates “ghost protocol,” in which the entire IMF is disavowed and everyone within is officially a fugitive from justice. With the help of an IMF analyst named Brent (Jeremy Renner), they plan on stopping Cobalt from getting the codes to a nuclear device that he plans on launching. First stop is Dubai, since the handoff of the codes is supposed to take place at the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. And a massive sandstorm is rapidly approaching…

That doesn’t take us all the way into the plot, but it does take us to the most awe-inspiring live-action sequence this year, in which Cruise is free-climbing on the outside of the tower, agents are fighting on the inside of open windows, and Cruise is hunting down villains in the midst of the sand blinding everyone’s immediate vision. Someone (whose name I forget but I’d love to credit) recently said on Twitter, “Watching Tom Cruise run is like watching Gene Kelly dance.” The man simply makes executing high-speed intense action sequences into an artform. Plus, his desire to do his own stunts makes the action all the more thrilling– you are always acutely aware that you are not watching a stunt double run on the outside of the tallest building in the world, you are watching a millionaire movie star. This allows Bird to frame his action closely and inject it with a human element in addition to the thrills.

The villain isn’t the same sort of scenery chewer that has populated the first three films, and there’s no love story for character development– there’s not much need in a fourth installment to add superfluous scenes to further develop the series protagonist. The supporting characters have very basic storylines (Carter recently lost a loved one in the field, Brent has a mysterious past), but they are well-acted, as Pegg and Patton are charismatic, and Renner has the movie star presence and physique to serve as a nice counterbalance to Cruise. Plus, the addition of humor to the franchise nearly eliminates the need for major league dramatic developments– Bird more than any other director today possibly knows how to balance verbal wit with physical wit (see Pixar’s The Incredibles for Ghost Protocol’s predecessor). The stunts are the most sensational you’ll see all year, led by the best action star around, directed by one of the best young directors alive. It’s a spectacle, gorgeous in IMAX, enormously diverting and wildly memorable– the most fun entry of the series to date. The real impossible mission will be for the writers who have to top this one.

~ by russellhainline on December 21, 2011.

Posted in Film Reviews
Tags: Brad Bird, IMAX, Jeremy Renner, JJ Abrams, Josh Appelbaum, Josh Holloway, Lea Seydoux, Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, The Incredibles, Tom Cruise