Toots, Bells, and Whistles but No Character Development

Rating: 5/10 (18 April 2012)

For those of us who didn't see MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL on the big screen but bought into the rave reviews that this is the best of all the MI pictures this 4th installment is a big letdown. Brad Bird as director may be part of the problem: his credits prior to this assignment include Up, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, The Iron Giant, The Simpsons, and such like - films that depend on the animation magic they bring to cute stories but somehow don't transfer well to the use of actors in a 'serious' film. Writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec based this script very loosely on Bruce Geller's original television series, but in this film they seem to opt more for inserted comedy lines when there is anything vaguely beyond the minimal conversations that occur. The film is like a ship without a sail and headed in a direction full of sidetracks.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise in a Tom Cruise Production) and his team Jane Carter (Paula Patton), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) are racing against time to track down a dangerous terrorist named Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who has gained access to Russian nuclear launch codes and is planning a strike on the United States. An attempt by the team to stop him at the Kremlin ends in a disaster, with an explosion causing severe destruction to the Kremlin and the IMF being implicated in the bombing, forcing the President to invoke Ghost Protocol, under which the IMF is disavowed, and will be offered no help or backup in any form. Undaunted, Ethan and his team chase Hendricks to Dubai, and from there to Mumbai, but several spectacular action sequences later, they might still be too late to stop a disaster.
It all starts in Budapest with the assassination of Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway) by Sabine Moreau (Léa Seydoux), proceeds to a prison breakout (Ethan Hunt has been imprisoned for killing some Serbian guards), the Russian secrets are discovered, aborted plans lead the team form the Kremlin to Dubai (for Tom Cruise's reportedly self performed scaling of a glass tower) and subsequently to Mumbai and on and on an on for well over two hours. The movie is fast moving and the booms and blowups and car chases and pyrotechnics and absurdly one-sided fights (yes, the girls get to fight and kill each other) manage to keep our attention because of spectacle. There are a couple of moments where we get to learn just a bit about some of the characters an their motivations to be part of this invincible team, but in the end we care very little about any of them as they talk their way through a soupy ending. OK to see on television on demand but not a film to own. But that is just one opinion from a viewer who likes story in a movie.
Grady Harp,