Stylish Action Entertainer - Mission Impossible 4 : Ghost Protocol

Is there anything Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) cannot do? No. He climbs the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa tower, jumps off the tower, chases the bad guy amidst sandstorm, infiltrates the highly secured Russian archives base Kremlin, etc, etc. He does all this for one sole purpose - to save the world from a nuclear attack in Mission Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol.

The plot is very plain. Launch codes of a Russian nuclear device falls in the hands of nuclear extremist Cobalt. IMF must stop him at all cost to avoid a nuclear war between two superpowers. Not very difficult to understand right?! In fact you will be immersed into the mind-blowing action scenes that you won’t even think of whether the story is complicated or not. M.I.4 has not even a single dull moment, not deviating from the plot in any instant. The film blasts off as a jet with full speed throughout, with as much action sequences and gadgets to please and entertain anyone who likes action-spy films.

Tom Cruise is back, reprising his role as super cool, charming, ultra superspy Ethan Hunt. This time he has to lead a team that he didn’t choose, and without any official support from the agency. His team comprises of computer geek Benji (Simon Pegg) and Agent Jane (Paula Patton), and later joined by Chief Analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner).

The action sequences are mind-blowing and spectacular right from the beginning till the end. The Burj Khalifa tower sequence in Dubai is breathtaking and stylishly executed both by Cruise and the crew. It must be one of the outstanding stunts of all the times. Other notable stunts being the foot-chase between Ethan and the bad guy, Renner’s jumping into a narrow vent with a magnetic suit. There are other fast and quick action scenes too - like the initial letter drop scene, the standoff between the team members at one point of time. Renner is awesome in that standoff. 

Ethan climbing Burj Khalifa tower

 

 

The casting is very strong. Except Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg who reprise their respective roles, all others are newly cast. The acting is convincing and very impressive, especially Renner and Paula Patton. It sounds like Renner’s role of Brandt could be a possible replacement to Ethan Hunt in future sequels if at all Tom chooses to retire from the franchise. Paula Patton is good in stunts – the one with female assassin Sabine Moreau (Lea Seydoux). Simon Pegg is cool and funny as computer expert Benji. Michael Nyqvist as Cobalt has nothing much to do. I felt like he is wasted. This time the villain role is not much effective as in the previous installments like Davien in M.I 3.  There is a female assassin Sabina Moreau (Lea Seydoux). Her eyes are simply terrifying, and she is more terrifying than the main villain. Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor has a minor role as a Mumbai based telecom industrialist Brij Nath.

Though an end-to-end action film, it’s not completely rigid. It has enough funny and comical moments - friendly interactions between Brandt and Benji, Benji making silly mistakes despite highly tense situation inside Kremlin, and Ethan’s prison friend Bogdan.  Most action films fail to impress because of not having this aspect and occupied by prolonged noise of stunts. M.I 4 in that way is very well balanced.

Sabine Moreau, the contract killer

The film has all the typical trademarks of the franchise – M.I original theme, masks, hacking satellite and high security systems, new car, foot-chase, jumping off buildings, self destructing messages, etc. Believe me, these guys have more gadgets than Bond. Some of them seem to be unbelievable but how the team uses them is interesting and appropriately. For example, the hand gloves used by Ethan to climb the tower, the way they get into Kremlin, switching suites in Burj Khalifa tower, Renner wearing a magnetic suite to jump into a narrow went – all are quite good with these gadgets. They tactically play the game with the very less time span remaining. In fact, the whole plot is set within 48 hours of time only.

Jeremy Renner in Action

The locations are very catchy and include Russia, Budapest, Dubai and India. The photography is very rich giving an overall stylish appeal to the film.

It’d be unfair if I don’t mention about the director of the film. The director of the film, Brad Bird is a newbie to live action films. He has earlier directed academy winning animation ventures Ratatoulie and The Incredibles. But this doesn’t have any impression of a live action debutant. Pretty neat.

I don’t find anything that lets the film down. There is no second thought that this is absolutely one of the best action films of all the time that action movie freaks love to watch, a thrill ride to enjoy. If anyone feels it’s not entertaining or boring or lets you down or something like that, then it is a mission impossible to entertain the person through any other means.