After putting it off for a week (what with the Christmas holidays and all), this week Evan and I saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. I got two previews (This Means War and Wrath of the Titans) and he got G.I. Joe, and we shared credit for The Dictator, since he said "This is the new one with Borat" only he couldn't remember the name. That's happened to me enough that turn-about is fair play.
Anyway, after three studio logos, the movie opens on a roof, with a man bursting out of a door. He's pursued by two other men. The chasee leaps off the roof, turns in mid-air, and shoots the chasers as he falls to the ground. He lands on a conveniently placed air mattress, and we learn it's not Tom Cruise. It's someone else, but is he good or bad, and will they feature him when Tom Cruise eventually returns to his home planet?
No, no they won't. But I can't tell you a whole lot about why not because I don't really want to spoil the movie. Before the credits (but after the opening scene) we get a jail break. Apparently Tom Cruise is in Russian prison, so two IMF agents break him out. He makes a pit stop to also evacuate his friend, which causes a lot of good-natured tension between him and Benji, the tech-guy in the van outside who's hacking the prison.
But the prison break goes smoothly despite the extra passenger, and the credits roll, and then the plot kicks off. Like the trailers suggest, it involves the dissolution of IMF by the president (just like G.I. Joe) and the team having to go through the plot without any backup, and with the threat that failure will results in death as well as being branded terrorists.
Anyway, Simon Pegg as Benji stays from the previous movie, as does Tom Cruise (obviously). Paula Patton gets added as the sex appeal, and Jeremy Renner gets added because
The plot progresses with awesome stunts and nifty gadgets (where do the gadgets come from if the team's been disavowed?) and cool action scenes. There's a chase that starts off on foot, then a huge dust-storm comes, but it continues, then it goes to cars, and finally when it seems over, it keeps going. That’s how to do a chase scene.
In fact, this movie makes its living on keeping going, until it’s past too late. Everything always seems a bit too late, but the team still manages to pull it off. It's not that they go right to the deadline, it's that they go past the deadline, and manage to stop bad things happening anyhow. Sometimes not, though, which leads to even worse things they have to stop.
This one doesn't trot the globe nearly as much as its predecessor. It only has three main locations, but it makes the most of them. There's either an action scene happening, or an action scene about to happen, so everything is very tense. Other than that, there's one moment that's emotional in the middle, and then one at the end.
The one at the end is pretty lousy, though. They had a really good explanation for some plot threads in the third movie, but then at the end they chucked them out by giving an alternative explanation. OR DID THEY?!? Yes, they did.
Except for that single scene (which other people will probably like, just not me), this whole movie is awesome. They let Tom Cruise run around and do a bunch of stunts, they let Simon Pegg do a bunch of funny stuff, they let Paula Patton walk around and be hot (she gets in one fight, but that's about it. She sure looks competent as an agent, though, so it's not like she's just there for eye candy. Or she's cleverly disguised eye candy). And they let Jeremy Renner act. So definitely a theatre movie. The bigger (it plays on IMAX screens) the better.
Saw this in Edmonton at the IMAX and it was awesome! Glad you liked it too.
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