MI4 is it time to stop now ?

Rating: 6/10 (14 April 2012)

Brad Bird went from animation to live action as director of MI4-Ghost Protocol and i must say this transition clearly went very well, the set pieces in this film were excellently shot, they really sucked me in, almost to the point that I did have a serious feeling of vertigo during the Burj Khalifa scene. As always Tom Cruise performs his own stunt work and this makes the experience all that more intense.
but despite the set pieces being visually stunning, especially the sandstorm chase, i couldn't help but feel the movie was lacking something. it seemed that everything in between the action was filled with unrealistic gadgetry, product placement (you know who you are!) and filler jokes from Benji (Simon Peg). Now I must stress that i am also a huge Simon Pegg fan, and without sounding like a complete hipster me and many of my friends have been be advocates of Simon Pegg for a lot longer than he has been mainstream so i was very disappointed that i didn't warm to his characters extra screen time in this movie.
The rest of the cast put in solid performances, Paula Patton was excellent and i enjoyed the scenes with Anil Kapoor the Indian Playboy who finds out that money does not always guarantee you a good time! I found the character Brandt interesting and i enjoyed his back story that links in with Ethan's past , although the twist to this particular story was a little easy to predict. I wouldn't want to see Jeremy Renner take on Ethan Hunts mantle future MI movies, i am more than happy for him to just take on the Bourne franchise. Where i thought this movie really let itself down was with the main antagonist, when you watch an action movie there is always the goodies and the baddies, the later is normally someone you really either route for because their plan is so dastardly that you just want them to succeed or they are so evil you just have to see them get taken down in epic style by the hero.
With MI4 i really didn't even notice the bad guy, had their plan not been force fed to me during one of the earlier scenes with the remaining IMF agents i really would not have
A. known who the main bad guy was
B. actually cared what their plan was if it didn't result in some excellent action that they invariably didn't even take part in or actually had any impact on the plot.
After one watch i was able to remember that MI had Phelps, MI2 had Ambrose and MI3 have Davian MI 4 had......hhhmmm i don't know? Cobalt or someone, what i do know is that he does commit some rather unnecessary suicide in some very funky kind of car park that sure beats anything we have here in the UK.
All in all to say that this film was not entertaining would be a lie, it was if only for the beautifully shot action, however to quote myself after the films finale "I'm glad i didn't pay to see that at the cinema"
Not as good as the rest but certainly not terrible.