Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2011)

A career comeback for an over-the-pinnacle mega-star is always gladly received (haters excluded) as it contains somewhat palatable subtext that the precious second chance will eventually arrive (good luck Eddie Murphy! Or maybe Meg Ryan?).
This latest Mission: Impossible vehicle is an utter treat for the eyes, especially for the IMAX screen audience, I watched it in front of a regular-sized one, still it is as diverting as any action/adventure film could ever proffer! All the locales are prudently chosen, Moscow with the part of a concealingly disguised Prague, Dubai and Mumbai are the three main settings, with all the action sequences come visually gratifying and sometimes eyes-opening (the Burj Khalifa Tower scenes in the trailer alone is tempting enough and the actual outcome is more stunning and breathtaking), prompt quips and one-liners in-between are effectual and measuredly conjured (Simon Pegg is the capital scene-stealer, and the new protagonist of a fourth Bourne feature, Jeremy Renner, also register quite amusing deadpan rib-tickling moments here, the new female agent Paula Patton is a delight too).
The nucleus of Mission: Impossible brand could be recapitulated as one sentence: everything is possible as long as one's imagination can reach, which has been steadfastly proved again by the plot of a last-second foiled nuclear missile. But generally speaking, the storyline is yet willfully implausible, which is a hot potato thornier than any special effects hiccups for the overall action genre. A more sensible remark should be that it is the film itself rescues Tom Cruise's descending career, and apart from the stunt-free acrobatics outside the highest building in the world, Cruise hardly renders anything new in his veteran character, Ethan Hunt.