Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Paul, Matt, Tom, A few others

So much fun. Brad Bird can direct live-action just as well as animation. This action sequences are impeccably choreographed and shot. And those few shot in the Imax format look amazing. When those black bars start to slide out of frame as Tom Cruise steps out the window of the worlds tallest skyscraper and the camera follows him over the edge, you do get a little vertigo.

This one has one of the best title sequences in the series and I love the set up for it. I'm also glad they had cameos from Ving Rhames, so he is still the only other character that's in all 4 and also another person from the 3rd instalment I was hoping would show up.

Speaking of which, Simon Pegg finds his role expanded in this film, gets to act as comedic relief and does a good job of it. This film doesn't have as strong an emotional grounding as the third film and it's also the most straight forward of the series. The double crossing, the switching sides, the mystery villains, the reveals with masks, all that stuff is gone making this the most generic.

I don't mind so much about the masks, the were overused in the sequel and while they found a great way to fake out the audience with them in the 3rd film, I think it's best they left them out of the equation here. However I was really hoping for a double cross somewhere along the lines. Especially as they had a great set up with Josh Holloway at the start that never amounted to anything.

The spy tech in this film delightful too. Some pretty far out there stuff, but who knows, it probably exists somewhere. Compared to the bubblegum and a mac laptop in the first film it's almost sci-fi.

While the very end fell a little flat for me, the rest of the film is pretty much non-stop high-stakes action. It builds well and there's no annoying shaky cam where you can't tell what the hell is going on.

Definitely one of the best in the franchise. See it in Imax if you have the chance.