Not terribily long ago, I went to see Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol on the IMAX. I mostly agreed to see this because of the extra dose of Dark Knight Rises it offered up during the normal trailer time – and was absolutely floored as was the rest of the audience who asked “why can’t we just see more of that?!” – but also because I was excited to see what Brad Bird could offer to this tumbling franchise that I loved and that inspired the first “storyline” of Eben07 – The Twin Cheeks
I love the first movie. Still think it is the best in the series, there wouldn’t be a series if Brian De Palma hadn’t hit a homer run with that first movie. John Woo was lucky to make the second and most terrible film in the era of John Woo action otherwise that hot mess would have been unforgivable and then JJ Abrhams effort on MI3 left me wanting more De Palma and a better story, but at least it was still a fun popcorn movie – although I’ve never been compelled to watch it a second or third time.
It was with a heavy heart and a lot of hope that I went into Ghost Protocol. I did not have high expectations, and initially I came out feeling pretty good about it – high on the adrenaline of stunts – but as that slowly faded into curmudgeonly grumbling of ”Where was the twist? Where was the intrigue?”
And Brad Bird’s direction was just great, he made a visually stunning and fun to watch popcorn movie chock full of action and a great deal of oooh-ahhhh. However, the storyline was just way too straight forward. The villian was just a shell character that was never really developed in anything to the quality of Brad Bird’s other efforts and there certainly wasn’t the emotional draw to it either.
Early on in the movie we learn that Ethan Hunt loses his wife in some nasty ordeal via the witty Simon Pegg and some banter about Ethan Hunt’s retirement running afoul. Eventually, after the antagonist bombs the Kremlin and pins it on Ethan Hunt we get Jeremy Renner’s character’s confession that he was on a mission to protect Hunt/Cruise and failed – Hunt’s wife was chopped up into itty bitty bits by some Serbian nationalists, and was powerless to stop it causing him to take a desk job over being a field agent.
So there is a group of characters surrounding Ethan Hunt the whole movie who have an emotional tie to him all movie long. This really is the only part of the movie explored between the dazzling stunts and action sequences… but by the end of the film. This plot point takes center stage as being a ruse. Ethan Hunt’s wife is alive & well – living in Seattle and dating a chubby black guy while Ethan Hunt saves the world. Cheapening every emotional scene between Cruise and Renner.
I also had a lot of misgivings about the launch of a nuclear weapon. The evil nukehead that plays raw evil the whole movie without much fanfare, just this rogue man who wants to start thermonuclear war to hopefully start society over, does get a missile in the sky and heading for San Francisco from Russia.
The abort codes are given seconds before the missile physically strikes the Transamerica Tower in downtown SF, but there is really no commentary on the American response to this. With the IMF in “Ghost Protocol” the United States would see this whole this as a pre-emptive Russian strike, and even with a red phone call – I highly doubt there would be no American retaliation before the missile hit.
These plot points were really not crucial to MI:4 because the plot of MI:4 was really just a series of escalating stunts and dares. Just super spies jumping on and jumping off things in crazy ways. Still better than the second or third outings, this Mission: Impossible just made me pine for the more De Palma – style effort. Where things were tense because you didn’t know who the real threat was until the end, there was an element of intrigue that wasn’t in any of the other efforts.
Mission: Impossible 4 was in stark contrast to the action-spy thriller that James Bond re-worked for Casino Royale and even Quantum Solace – the MI crew went to this sort of place of the last few Pierce Brosan efforts that were just large action pieces strung together loosely. I just don’t feel like that’s what Mission: Impossible ever was, and that’s why, even as entertaining as it is – I don’t think it fits the vibe and was & possibly is a franchise in trouble.
