Terrific in IMAX - really great stunts

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2012)

You never really expect the fourth movie in a series to be very good. The law of diminishing returns usually applies here. You know the characters, you know the premise, you know there will be a plethora of explosions and perhaps some bon mots. And that's all you want out of escapist, popcorn movies. The new Mission:Impossible movie flouts those conventions, though. Sure, its plot is straightforward (only one man can stop the end of the world!), but the stunts and the spectacular cinematography complement the story, rather than point to its threadbare nature.
In Mission:Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is imprisoned in Serbia. We don't know why, but maybe we'll find out later. Unsurprisingly, he's busted out by fellow agents Benji (Simon Pegg) and Carter (Paula Patton). It seems some bad guy has his hands on a nuclear device and needs only the launch codes, but when Hunt and his team infiltrate the Kremlin to retrieve them... well, the place blows up. The Impossible Missions Force is blamed and disbanded, as the U.S. president (fearing repercussions from Moscow) invokes Ghost Protocol, and the team is left on its own to Save the World.
The events take place sometime after those in M:I 3, in which Ethan Hunt quits the IMF. Well, here we are again, so perhaps that was just a decoy, huh? But it's not a simple matter of trying to make the audience forget Hunt had quit; that plot idiosyncrasy is explained. Luckily for us, it's not a driving force behind the plot, which is just a long-hand way of saying that although this one follows that one and refers to events in that one, it doesn't negate that one at all - it plays off it. Trust me, it'll make more sense once you see the movie.
The must-find-bad-guys-to-save-self/save-the-world plot is not really new, but the way it dovetails with the subplots (i.e., what happened to Hunt after M:I III and other pieces) is surprisingly well done. Added to the mix is an analyst, played by Jeremy Renner, who finds himself sucked into Hunt's mission and who may not be who he says he is. It's a movie in which we're not left guessing about the big things (e.g., who's the bad guy, what's he up to) but rather about the small things (what does X have to do with Y, what does Y know that we don't).
I saw this movie in an IMAX theater, and for once the effect is well used. Here's a prime example. Ethan Hunt needs to get to a computer server room within the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Trouble is, he can't access it from the inside. In case you're not familiar, the Burj Khalifa is 2,716.5 feet tall. That's more than half a mile. Ethan needs to scale it (although, luckily, not the entire height). He uses these suction gloves: thwop, thwop, thwop. And while he's doing this, we're treated to a dizzying look at the skyscrapers below him; because of the huge screen, it really felt as if the theater were tilting, rather than the camera. Excellent work. Every explosion, every pounding is amplified; when glass shatters, you duck - and the movie's not even in 3D.
Cruise is Tom Cruise. He is not, as I am fond of saying, an actor - he is a movie star. Ethan Hunt is a hugely successful character for him, but he's not without some flaws. In fact, I think it can be said that there's more to Hunt in this installment than there was before, and somehow Cruise is able to make us feel, well, concern for him. Sure, he's in charge, but he has his demons. Cruise doesn't overact here. In fact, he even slows the tempo down a bit, as if he's realized that sometimes saying nothing is better than saying something. Sure, he grits his teeth and defies all laws of physics, but he does seem to be bringing a little more to Hunt's character, psychologically, than we'd seen before. Big plus.
Mission:Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a near-perfect action/spy thriller. There is plenty of intrigue, and you shouldn't be able to guess it all at first blush. It is a plausible, if not remarkable, plot. Its stuntwork - some performed by Cruise - is staggering to behold. If there ever was a movie that made your jaw drop at times, it's this one. They even manage to mix in a huge sandstorm, which is in itself a little scary. (Side note: how do real Dubai people deal with these things? In the movie they appear to be driving off the road as if they'd never seen one before.) Tom Cruise updates his usual Action Man character with some mental issues, and it works. He has an able supporting cast - great comic relief from Pegg, as usual, and the delectable Patton as a woman with issues of her own - and boggling special effects to move things along. This is definitely a movie best appreciated on the big screen.