bad writing, no acting, no story, no expert team

Rating: 3/10 (28 May 2012)

We'd just finished watching MI3, which was entertaining if, of course, wholly improbable--still, fun, so we thought we'd now watch this latest.
Especially compared with previous MIs, what a let down. **Hereafter may be spoilers, in discussing what does and does not happen, so beware *** For starters, and unlike all good MI story lines (movie or TV) -- this movie contained not one single -- I repeat, not one single -- successful, coordinated team effort, you know, where they all do their own parts with incredible (genuinely incredible) agility and precision to culminate in a successful mission. Did I mention, NOT ONE? Instead, apparently to be funny, rather than a good team, it's just a miscellaneous woman plus that computer geek from MI3 (about which more below), and some analyst guy (Jeremy) added in, I guess, just to add him in. NO TEAM --At least, no competently trained team. Instead, these character rarely acted together, rarely followed any plan reliably (but often did other than as planned, out of stupidity or just untimely questioning), etc etc So -- never gave that fantasy jolt of a team of super slick folks doing what they do best together. Never.
To make my point, compare MI3 party scene (where they replace Huffman in the Vatican) with this party scene which you can't even make sense of. Villain there, villain gone, Tom kisses woman, villain back. I think the comparison between these scenes shows it all.
What this film DID have were poorly written attempts at humor. MI3 had some clever lines (like Cruise, when asked how he is on ammo, looks, says he has enough, takes one successful shot, then says, "now I'm out"). This flick had none of that but instead silly, childish banter by that computer geek who has now lost weight and is elevated to being part of what passes for a team in this movie -- but he won't shut up! Banter, banter, banter -- like listening to the conversation of R2D2! Again, I GUESS the writer thought it would be funny, but it's just annoying. He's not, by the way, giving any important info in this banter -- just banter, presumably to be funny.
And lastly, and perhaps as importantly as the total absence of any well-executed team mission is the absence of a meaningful storyline. Oh, sure, there's a necessary bad guy and his side kick, plus a woman assassin thrown in apparently just so they could have a scene with two women fighting because she wasn't otherwise important to any plot. Perhaps they just replaced dialogue with explosions and the storyline got lost on the cutting room floor. Lots of explosions. Yeah, high wire act, but this time, as with this whole movie, NOT done with the sense of precision and inevitability, but just a mess.
Bottom line -- writing was terrible, acting rather non-existent (thought Cruise did some good emoting in MI3 -- really wasn't here this time, just the smirk), and overall a terrible movie. Who on earth ever gave this movie even a 5, much less a 7.5, must have never seen any well done MI or Bourne movies. This was closer to a spoof.