Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol
DIRECTED BY BRAD BIRD
Before MGM’s bankruptcy delayed the 23rd instalment of the James Bond franchise, the world’s most famous spy was slated to return to multiplexes in the fall of 2011. Apparently Paramount sensed an opportunity to fill the 007 void, because not only does Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol swap the series’ traditional May release window for Bond’s customary holiday slot, but Brad Bird’s silly, gratifyingly bombastic effort also borrows a thoroughly Bondian premise.
Specifically, a deranged Russian strategist (Michael Nyqvist) intends to trigger the classic Cold War scenario of mutual assured destruction by launching a nuclear strike against the United States. To do so, he steals a nuclear launch control device from the Kremlin and sets off a bomb to cover his tracks, with the added bonus that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his Impossible Mission Force are made to take the rap. The U.S. President duly activates “Ghost Protocol,” disavowing the entire IMF, theoretically depriving Hunt of access to intel and, most disconcertingly, to the IMF’s arsenal of wonderfully ridiculous gadgets.
Happily for the human race, the measure proves to be utterly toothless. Hunt receives a tip on the location of an intact IMF equipment cache which apparently contains more goodies than Q’s engineers have manufactured in the entire Bond series to date—ranging, randomly, from inflatable prosthetic arms to an automated hotel door renumbering device, to a remote-control Mars rover lookalike capable of suspending an agent in mid-air via an electromagnetic current (provided they’re wearing the included spangly disco suit).
Its most plausible contents are probably a pair of electro-adhesive climbing gloves, which prove handy when Hunt is called upon to intercept nuclear launch codes at the Burj Khalifa (familiar to Torontonians as the building that dethroned the CN Tower as the world’s tallest free-standing structure). This well-publicized sequence, which was shot in IMAX, and features Cruise himself clinging perilously to the building’s exterior, is as spectacular as advertised, and deservedly serves as the film’s centrepiece.
Bird, here making his live-action debut after an auspicious stint with Pixar, shoots the dizzying scene, and, indeed, all of Ghost Protocol‘s action scenes, like an old hand. Cruise, of course, is actually an old hand where this material is concerned, but remains impressively spry for his 49 years. Series newcomers Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner prove perfectly proficient, though Ving Rhames exudes greater charisma in a brief cameo than both combined. (In fairness, he’s Ving Rhames.) Simon Pegg’s affable computer whiz rounds out the roster, and having passed his field exam since the events of M:I3, even provides the series with a gun-toting, quick quipping Brit of its own.