And so, as I sat down to watch Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and glanced around at my fellow cinema-goers, I became more and more worried that I had walked into the wrong screen. There was one couple roughly my age, a guy in his early thirties and, most worryingly, about eight people who had clearly used their free bus pass to get to the cinema. As the adverts rolled, I became convinced that I'd been supremely idiotic and had waltzed in to the screen showing The Lady and not Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. But no, I was in the right screen, with an audience who were probably coming up to retirement when Mission: Impossible was released. And you know what? They loved it.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is the fourth episode in the series of films which has seen Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) do battle with the bad and the ugly of the human race since 1996. Ghost Protocol follows in much the same way but, this time, the IMF (an unofficial branch of the CIA) has been disbanded after a disaster in Moscow results in the blame being put on the IMF. What follows is a race to prevent nuclear war which leads Ethan and his team (Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton) across Budapest, Dubai and Mumbai. One of the best aspects of this film is its strong narrative, which pins together the action sequences and creates a coherent film at the end – something which is often missed by other action blockbusters (Transformers II and III, ahem).
This easy-to-understand narrative and a likeable group of central characters creates a film which is both enjoyable and well-paced. The action sequences are competently constructed and offer some real edge-of-the-seat stuff and I wish I had seen the film on an IMAX screen as the sight of Cruise hanging off the side of a Dubai hotel would have been spectacularly vertigo-inducing. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is also refreshing in its creation of such sequences and the new array of gadgets (my favourite scene involved an invisibility screen in the Kremlin) and, whilst it followed the conventions of action films, the action set-pieces were approached from interesting angles.
Simon Pegg reprises his role as the technical wizard Benji and offers a genuine comedic presence which works superbly with the plot and other characters. I've never been a great fan of Tom Cruise but I do have to say that he knows his action stuff when it comes to the Mission: Impossible series, no small feat seeing as he turns fifty this year. The film is directed by Brad Bird (whose past work includes Pixar's The Incredibles) and is his first live-action film which, I have to say, he has pulled off very well. The film has everything: gunfights, disguises, car chases, jets, sandstorms, explosions and missions more challenging than trying to see escape a department store without being sprayed with more than twenty different perfumes. Producing credits from Cruise and J. J. Abrams (who directed the third film) have ensured that the Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol retains the pedigree of the previous films whilst moving the franchise forward and re-invigorating the action, the gadgets and the stars.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a romping action film which works through its use of eye-boggling set-pieces, witty dialogue and a musical theme which can't fail to bring a smile to your face. But one thing is clear: if you want to be a secret agent these days, you're gonna need an iPad.
Clapperboard Rating: * * * *
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