A film review by Craig J. Koban December 28, 2011 |
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Rank: #14 |
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MISSION IMPOSSIBLE:
GHOST PROTOCOL
Ethan Hunt: Tom Cruise / Brandt: Jeremy Renner / Benji: Simon
Pegg / Jane: Paula Patton / Hendricks: Michael Nyqvist |
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The
job of the film critic is to report on what they've seen and how well an
individual film accomplished its prescribed aims.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL - as far as action-thrillers
go - is a rare breed for how it
genuinely astounds us as a non-stop, adrenaline-induced, and feverously
gripping genre picture. This
is a large scale and lavishly produced Christmas season
blockbuster/popcorn entertainment, but it’s also masterful for how it brims
with stunt and action set pieces that are simultaneously exhilarating and
evoke a sense of legitimate “how’d-they-do-that” awe. The real mission:impossible behind the film, though, may be the fact that Oscar winner Brad Bird – making his live-action directorial feature film debut after an auspicious career of making animated efforts like RATATOUILLE, THE INCREDIBLES, and THE IRON GIANT – has managed to take a franchise that, under normal circumstances, would be stale by its fourth entry and instead has injected a revitalizing sense of freshness and daring innovation into the proceedings. The first three MISSION films were solid: I liked the Euro-aesthetic of Brain De Palma’s 1995 original, the high octane intensity of John Woo’s 2000 follow-up, and J.J. Abrams brazenly stylish, merrily improbable and engaging M:I-III from 2006. Yet, Bird’s newest entry sets an audacious new standard for the series. Some action films
aspire to have one or two virtuoso action sequences in them; M:I-IV has
around a half a dozen. The
film begins with a spectacular and fast paced bang and goes from one
stupendously improbable – but fiendishly creative and suspense-filled
– sequence to the next and never looks back.
Here’s a film that begins with a daring and dangerous Moscow
prison break, proceeds to a devastatingly lethal terrorist bombing of the
Kremlin itself, and then careens off to Dubai where the film’s hero has
to straddle the 2700 foot Burj Khalifa skyscraper – the
tallest structure in the world – with special gloves that allow his
hands to stick to the outer windows like Spider-man.
And if you’re not
thrilled enough by that point, Bird and company then throw at us a vast
foot and car chase through a city-wide sand storm, a brutal fisticuff battle
between villain and hero in a modern and sleek parking garage made up of
dizzying levels, and finally a last ditch attempt to ensure that the
world is not ravaged by nuclear Armageddon.
I’m not sure what made me sweat with seat-squirming intensity
more: all of the aforementioned action or the luminous façade of star
Paula Patton in a nicely form fitting gown. The story is
wall-to-wall
implausible silliness, but joyously so.
Veteran IMF ("impossible mission force" to the
uninitiated) agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise, with a gnarly intensity and rocking a six pack and
chiseled guns...at nearly 50) are desperately
hunting down a Swedish international terrorist named Hendricks (the almost
unrecognizable Michael Nyqvist from 2009's THE
GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) that is a brilliant madman that wants to start a nuclear war to
profit from it later. Hunt’s
initial mission to thwart Hendricks' own mission to nab some vital nuclear missile
codes from within the Kremlin is a failure, which leaves the Kremlin a
crater in the ground. Hunt
and his team are blamed for the explosion and the U.S. and Russians are at
their most heated state since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Worse yet, the U.S. President has invoked “ghost protocol,” which
has completely disbanded the IMF and has branded Hunt and his comrades as
terrorists, making their mission to come that much more...impossib-ler. Hunt’s team
includes Benji (the always funny Simon Pegg, playing the computer
mastermind of the group); the uber sexy, but uber deadly Jane (the
perpetually easy-on-the-eyes Paula Patton) who has a personal stake in the
mission; and finally newcomer Brandt (Jeremy Renner, always bringing a
level of caged intensity and world weariness to his roles) as an
“analyst” that may or may not have had something to do with Ethan’s wife
being killed years ago. Despite
being enemies of the U.S. government and having little in the way of
friends or allies, Hunt and company begin their covert mission – that
takes them to places as far ranging as Moscow, Dubai, and Mumbai – of
trying to nab and stop Hendricks from achieving peace through nuking the
planet. Like Christopher
Nolan did with THE DARK KNIGHT,
Brad Bird wisely avoids using 3D here and instead opted to film some of
M:I-IVs sequences (approximately 30 minutes worth) with the large scale
IMAX formatted cameras, which has allowed him and his cinematography,
Robert Elswit (a shoe-in Oscar nominee here) to open up the film series as
never before. Although I didn't have the pleasure of seeing the film in IMAX, I can understand
Bird’s rationale here: the negative gives viewers a brighter, crisper,
and much higher image quality than any 3D presentation could offer, which
gives city-wide establishing shots and action scene compositions a
level of instant immersion. The film's action, as stated, has to be seen to be believed in the film. I loved the early Russian prison break accompanied by the tunes (don’t ask) of Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”, which is promptly followed by the massive explosion of the Kremlin that will leave viewers breathless. Then there are other scenes that show an endless sense of risky imagination: One involves Hunt and Benji trying to infiltrate the vaults of the Kremlin by using a wall-to-wall screen in which a virtual reality image is meant to both hide them and make the guard think he’s just viewing a hallway. Then there is a solo mission for Brandt that involves him – while wearing a steel mesh undersuit – jumping into a piping hot ventilation shaft and computer room while not making contact with the surroundings or floors. Benji pilots a little remote control machine underneath him – which utilizes powerful magnets – that allows Brandt to hover in place. Unbelievable? Perhaps.
Thrilling? Absolutely. Then, of course,
there is the film’s piece de resistance, the hair-raising and
spin-tingling sequence that has Hunt hanging by high-tech suction gloves
outside the 123rd floor of that Dubai skyscraper (Cruise apparently did
not use a stunt double for any of the shots).
My analytical mind told me that Cruise was obviously
suspended by wires that were erased by computers by Industrial Light &
Magic, but…still…you gain a startlingly abrupt sense of danger by
seeing an actual person dangling from an actual building and not a CGI
stunt double or a performer in front of an obviously phony green screen.
There’s not much in the way of sleight of hand trickery here,
just good old-fashioned stunt work, dazzling cinematography and old school
editing. It’s one of the
great scenes of the movies. It’s easy to
overlook the cast here, who are all very thanklessly dependable,
especially Cruise, who despite being nearly over the hill has managed to
plausibly age gracefully as the series has progressed (his willingness to
place himself in danger for the sake of his craft on that Dubai skyscraper
can be seen as either commendable or suicidal).
Renner compliments Cruise rather well and serves, at times, as the
audience’s pragmatic portal into the sheer ludicrousness of his team’s
planned missions. Paula
Patton is a feisty, sultry, and kick-ass heroine that’s still vulnerable
inside. Nyqvist fully embraces his megalomaniacal villain with a
subdued relish. MISSION
IMPOSSIBLE
– GHOST PROTOCOL, not too dissimilar from great action adventure efforts
like the INDIANA JONES pictures, is a supremely assured exercise in
keeping viewers at the edge of their seats, enthusiastically awaiting its
next astonishing sequence and hungrily demanding more afterwards.
Some may question my awarding it a four star rating, but it’s
quite clear: relative to its genre, does M:I-IV succeed at its goals as
an action thriller? The answer is a reverberating “yes.”
For what it’s trying to do, the film is as near perfect as it
gets. It’s one of the
finest action pictures in a long while and easily one of the best sequels
in many a moon. |
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