Worst movie of entire MI franchise

Rating: 5/10 (27 December 2011)

I can't say you should not watch this latest installation of MI series. In fact, if you have 2+ hours to kill, if you like beautiful set pieces, spy gadgetry and BMW product placement and if you want something that has Tom Cruise in it - this is your movie. Except that you need to remember one thing – Ghost Protocol is lacking everything that made 1st and 3rd MI movies good, and 2nd - bearable.
MI series have always pushed the believability envelope with outlandish spy tech, but that played only second fiddle to the moments of true tension, thrilling action sequences, and all of it was glued together with somewhat acceptable logic of the events. Mission was well defined, the enemy had the depth and the reason, and the conflict between good and evil felt real.
Sadly enough Ghost Protocol fails on all these counts.
The story is extremely bad, even dumb, I could literary come up with a better plot in 15 minutes.
Despite lots of action there are no intense moments here, you never feel Ethan Hunt is one step away from death or that he is under the enormous pressure of making a critical decision.
If there is a room with a door that good guys want to get access to, it is guaranteed they will choose the most absurd, most expensive, most pseudo-hi-tech way to do it using most ridiculous gizmo they could find. In fact the amount of unnecessary tech toys and super-duper spy stuff is so over the top here the movie looks like the parody of itself.
The major flaw (and the amazing one at that, since no experienced production team would ever overlook this) is that the villain's character is not developed at all, we're given almost no explanation of his actions or motives. Actually he barely speaks two words during the entire movie, which is such a mind-blowing contrast to Philipp Seymour Hoffmans's stellar portrayal of Owen Davian in MI3.
As always everything taking place in Russia looks retarded, which is a common Hollywood's problem, it's a mystery to me why it is so hard to avoid stupidity when showing Eastern Europe.
Movie locations feel more forced than ever, like Burj Dubai, that has no business being in the movie other than for the picturesque purposes.
The lack of logic in everything that takes place is quite impressive, I actually suspect someone at the studio had a bet regarding what level of idiocy movie audience will tolerate without starting Occupy Hollywood protests if only they infuse this moronic script with multi-million dollar budget.
Brad Bird was clearly a wrong choice for a MI director, considering that the only action comedy he ever made was The Incredibles, which is my favorite cartoon, but still just a cartoon, and much more of a comedy than action. In comparison, MI1 was directed by Brian De Palma, MI2 - by John Woo, and MI3 – by JJ Abrams. I have a feeling Paramount executives secretly wish for MI series to go out with a lame fizzle, and doing their best to achieve that.
To avoid descending into spoiler hell I will not delve into multiple WTF moments where either laziness or lack of common sense resulted in directorial decisions that poorly translated to the screen.
To sum it up – if you decide to go watch it – come in with low expectations, that will make Your Mission a success.