Derek's Movie Review

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2012)

Mission Impossible IV is everything you've already seen in a secret agent movie. Creative displays of concept technology, gruesome fight sequences, female prowess, personal relationships as side plots, and witty/comedic interjections. Despite you probably knowing exactly what I'm talking about, I left the movie happy with such conformity because of the purity and patience through which these elements were displayed
The plot is very easy to follow and rightfully so. We see these movies for the fighting, cool gadgets, and to see Tom Cruise sprint with 90 degree-bent arms (me and Kevin think he looks funny running). The plot is usually a bonus. But Brad Bird finds a way to let the plot add believability and really understand why certain routes have to be done. In other words, most of the time, these missions seemed necessary;something that the previous MI's didn't have. I left the other three asking why they had to go so far fetched with some of the action sequences and showed so much ass all the time. The same goes with the comedy. I hate nothing more than the pot-brownie mom in Transformers II! At least in MI4 they have jokes that freshen the plot, not deviate from it (frickin' brownie scene in transformers bugs me!)
Yes, to be sure, it had those few scenes that have your neighbors grabbing your forearm and getting nervous in the front row (my mom). The "slip from the ledge and somehow have the unheralded strength to hold on with two fingers after falling 30 feet" type of cheese. But, it is a ridiculous premise in the first place, and I was somewhat pleased to know that Brad Bird reminds us not to take it too seriously. As a matter of fact, he makes us welcome it. We're not trying to pull a Batman Begins of comics here. We're trying to make a sequel that sticks to the formula, but takes just enough cheese off the dinner table so that we don't drive home stuffed. 7/10