On M List of Movie Reviews
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Mission: Impossible -
Ghost Protocol (2011)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
1/17
1/17:
Although it's better than the last two parts, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is
Barry Lyndon dead and full of insults to my intelligence.
To begin with the positives, everything looks mostly back to old school: the acting, the script, the camera work (which
surprisingly never shakes), and the action sequences. The cast is calm and gets things done without much
fanfare. I'm pleased and relieved, so thank you, everybody, for not giving me a splitting headache.
Tom Cruise is better this time around, being more like himself, but in a serious way. Again, he did most of his own stunts
which is impressive. However, I prefer his Ethan Hunt persona from the first part.
Although the script isn't dumb, it's too convoluted for my taste. The writers went overboard with
the entire thing, taxing my mind with all of the fancy bullshit. What happened in the first part was cool and clever, but at
no point, it was an overload of complications. It doesn't help matters any when the fourth part runs for over two hours.
That's too long to sit through.
As for the plot, the reason why makes no sense and is typical of James Bond pictures, but who cares? It's all about
the gadgets, at least in the minds of the filmmakers, and the products to create a marketing buzz around them.
I would've given the film at least '7', but the more Ethan Hunt kept bouncing himself off everything without any
serious injury to his body, the more absurd it was getting to be. Real people cannot survive what Ethan went
through. So, he must be a superman after all. I thought this was supposed to be an espionage, not comic book, movie?
I was skeptical of it for having been shot on location in Moscow and thought that couldn't be possible. Well, it turns out they did it
in Prague with the rest through CGI. To give them credit, they did shoot the film in Dubai although it looked unrealistic.
Tom Cruise actually climbed the Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest building in the world at 2,722 feet.
Only once the mask technique is used which is a surprise. But the superman move is done for the fourth time in a row.
Already redundant, it's time for the franchise to retire the stunt for good.
Ving Rhames is cut out of the main cast but makes a cameo appearance at the end. Speaking of it, the distinctive-looking man,
whose name is Andreas Wisniewski, with the long yellow hair from the first part appears. It's a nice treat. You may not
be aware of this, but he did play the blond-haired guy with the glasses, who was Karl's brother, in
Die Hard and Necros in The Living Daylights.
When I mentioned Barry Lyndon at the beginning of this review, I was speaking of the dead emotions displayed by
the thespians. Everybody is so mechanical and workmanlike that they've made the show boring. I guess the characters must be
robots in this day and age.
All in all, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is back to basics, but they need to keep things more real
from a human standpoint.