High octane fun

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2012)

The fourth instalment in the Mission Impossible movie franchise sees the Kremlin blown up by mysterious operatives, but blamed on Ethan Hunt's IMF organisation. The US President closes IMF down, leaving Hunt's cell of 3 operatives (augmented by a mysterious fourth agent, Brandt) to halt the plan (of which the Kremlin bombing is simply the first stage) and, in the process, prove their innocence. Oh, and stop World War III.
The seemingly ageless Tom Cruise puts Ethan Hunt through his athletic paces once more, aided by Simon Pegg's comic relief computer geek Benjy, Paula Patton's very able token female Jane, and Jeremy Renner's Brandt. All four are excellent. The stunts and action sequences are spectacular and almost non-stop, the story (which is less complex than it appears) has sufficient suspense to keep you on the edge of the seat, there are a couple of areas where you expect one thing but the film delivers another, but...
The "but" has to do with MI3. Numbers 1 and 2 were very enjoyable, but essentially action packed romps. Number 3 rose above this by putting, at its heart, the relationship between Ethan Hunt and new wife Julia: the risk to Julia raised the stakes enormously, and gave MI3 a heart which the first two movies were missing. MI4 starts with Hunt's marriage being a thing of the past so, although we are later given more information about what happened, that heart is missing. For that reason alone, I regard MI3 as superior.
But make no mistake, this is a blockbuster worthy of the title.