Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

This really is a treat for action lovers; ‘Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol’ is filled with relentless action almost all throughout the film. Seeing the film in IMAX made it even more enjoyable because a lot of the shots in the film are so thrilling that you feel like you are hanging on by a thread along with our main character Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).  This film is one of the best action films of the year and it really lives up to the hype and fits in nicely with the phenomenon of all the ‘Mission Impossible’ flicks.

In this sequel Ethan gets some new team members from the IMF: Jane (Paula Patton), Brandt (Jeremy Renner) along with his old pal Benji (Simon Pegg). After a terrible misunderstanding between Russia and the U.S. the team is sent to try to stop a terrorist: Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), from detonating a missile that will start a nuclear war. The trick is that the team must complete this task on their own without help from the IMF, since because of the misunderstanding the president has shut them down and so they begin what they call “Ghost Protocol”. If the team is not able to stop Hendricks intricate plan, which involves using a satellite, then Ethan’s team will be blamed for the terrorist act and everything they’ve worked for will go down the drain along with their entire lives.

Cruise is the exact same Ethan we’ve seen in the past, he still performs amazing stunts and has the same strong character that seems to be untouched by anything physically and emotionally. We travel to Hungary, Russia, Dubai and India. The Dubai sequence has some of the best scenes, my favorite is Ethan having to climb the tallest building in the world with some “spider-man” like gloves. There are some interesting twists in the movie but one of its biggest flaws is the plot. The whole Russian/American tension just like in the Cold War era has been overplayed.

If you are a fan of the past Mission Impossible movies this one will certainly not disappoint, it connects it to the rest nicely. Director Brad Bird certainly made his own version of the series while still respecting those that already exist; the combination of both of these elements is what made this film maybe the best out of the Mission Impossible series.