Tom Cruise is brilliant

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2013)

It is amazing how the director managed to change the style of the franchise, leaving the film much funnier and violent while changing the plot into something more interesting complex, and of course still starring the brilliant Tom Cruise.
I've got my complaints, of course. Mysterious analyst Brandt's, played by Jeremy Renner, dramatic side story is never fully realized, the plot feels half-baked at times, and Paula Patton's acting is lackluster. Also, one can't help but wonder how an aging physicist can keep up with a young special agent physically. Still though, this being an action movie, it fails or succeeds based on the merit of said action sequences and they deliver in spades. From a chase scene in the middle of a sandstorm to a fight in an automotive production facility, the viewer gets the sense that the filmmakers made a serious effort to innovate.
Rather than seeking to impress the viewer based on the quantity of explosions on the screen at any given moment, they instead do so by building tension and maintaining a bizarre sense of plausibility. There are other good things about this movie, like the colorful locales and effective comic relief, but those elements live to serve the effective action sequences. If you'd like to shut your brain off for an hour and a half and enjoy some of the best original action sequences produced in years, then this film would be a solid investment. If you take yourself too seriously, maybe watch something else