Cinema review: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Ethan Hunt and his friends in another “Mission Impossible”, this time with a much taller building to climb.

Like his predecessors Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a fun ride that is still missing some vital element to make it a really great movie.

The action is certainly fun even if at times pointless. On the plus side there is a stunning sequence where Tom Cruise himself, no stuntmen were involved, climb the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. However the other action sequences are all a little bit corny, I couldn’t escape the feeling that somewhere the Hollywood Blockbuster machine dictated the exact number and position of the fight sequences and who cares if they don’t really fit in.

Speaking of action Ethan Hunt is officially a super hero. His fight abilities and overall capacities now are so over the top that is difficult to take him seriously. Well at least we got a returning Simon Pegg who is almost promoted from comedic sidekick to main action guy, with of all guys Jeremy Renner replacing him as the comedic relief who doesn’t do a lot. The group is rounded up by the token female, Paula Patton, who doesn’t really manage to make something out of her role but certainly is good eye candy.

Back are the wacky gizmos that are the trademark of this serial. There is a vague attempt of “this time we’ll go back to the basics” and so within half an hour our heroes have to go rouge, yet again, without resources but in the end they bring so much stuff with them that I can’t imagine what happens when they have all the assets of the agency at their disposal.

The director is Brad Bird, one of the Pixar wonder boys, and while I must concede that he did a competent job he didn’t manage to bring the magic of “The incredibles”  to a live action environment. We’ll see this summer with “John Carter”, which is directed by another Pixar alumnus, Andrew Stanton, if it’s really the environment that stifles creativity so much.

In the end a nice popcorn movie, with the biggest action star of the planet, it deliver what’s on the tin, nothing more and nothing less.