Release Date: 12/21/2011
After an epic explosion rocks the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team of super-operatives find themselves hung out to dry and without a lifeline. The IMF Secretary (the impeccable Tom Wilkinson) informs Ethan that his team has been branded as traitors out to insight global nuclear war. The president has initiated “Ghost Protocol” and the entire IMF agency has been disavowed. Now, Ethan and his team must go rogue in order to prevent Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist of the original Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy) from launching a nuclear missile and starting World War III.
The opening scene of Ghost Protocol sets the tone for the entire film. Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), two IMF operatives, break Ethan out of a Russian prison. But eventually, the mishap inside the Kremlin throws everything into a tailspin. With the introduction of Brandt (Jeremy Renner), an IMF Intelligence Analyst, Ethan’s team expands from 3 to 4. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt and maintains his icy intensity; Jeremy Renner – rumored to be taking over the franchise – injects the film with a steely reserve and some pretty damn good comedic throw away lines; Paula Patton is the cliche tough-as-nails spy femme…but is sexy as hell; and Simon Pegg returns as Benji who has made the transition from IMF Technician to full field agent, and his comedic timing perfectly breaks up the film’s action.
Ghost Protocol swells with explosive scenes. There are at least half a dozen of them, and they’re not only inventive, but hella exciting. The fight between Ethan and Hendricks comes to mind. It’s a brawl that takes place within a complex automated parking garage in downtown Mumbai. The two men wrestle for a steal briefcase, with….oh, I don’t know….the future of mankind riding on the outcome. It’s a good one. But all the action comes from story out of necessity. And it not only benefits from Tom Cruise’s screen presence but also his insistence to perform his own stunts. A scene in Moscow where he leaps off a four story ledge was actually performed by Cruise himself. As was the film’s crown achievement.
The most astonishing action sequence this year – in any film – might just be Tom Cruise geckoing across the mirrored glass panels of the Burj Khalifa with adhesive gloves all the while a giant sand storm looms along the horizon. At 163 stories high, and nearly twice the size of the Sears Tower, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world — and the actor is just dangling by his fingertips from a window on the 139th floor. At some moments during this sequence, I had to literally look away because it was freaking me out knowing how damn high up Tom Cruise really was. The man has some serious cojones.
Ghost Protocol is light on political intrigue and has zero social value. Which is good. While it does touch on the renewed tension between the US and Russia, it doesn’t make it the primary focus. Executive Producers Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams were crafty enough not indulge in any form of ideology. The villain in Ghost Protocol isn’t a religious militant, an Arab jihadist or a rogue American general. Kurt Hendricks, codenamed “Cobalt,” is a Scandinavian nuclear scientist who believes in the process of natural selection, in which a catastrophic event, such as a nuclear explosion, would leave humanity more refined. In this way, Hendricks is almost portrayed in the vein of a Bond-like supervillain.
Ghost Protocol impressively marks the first live-action film in the career of director Brad Bird. Bird is the animator behind animated films like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and most recently Ratatouille. All terrific films, and with the success of Ghost Protocol, I can’t help but wonder why he’s only made 4 films in the past 12 years. I’m interested in seeing what Brad Bird does next. He’s an extremely visual filmmaker and given his track record with digitalization, his future looks extremely bright. Michael Bay should take lessons from Brad Bird on how to make an effective action movie. There’s only action because the story demands it. Brad Bird gives us a cleaner, clearer, and much smarter action film that Michael Bay wishes he could make.
IMDb: 7.9/10
Rottentomatoes: 93%
MovieWiseguys: 8.0/10
