The Mission: Impossible series isn’t really one of my favorites, to be honest, and I’m not really sure why. They’ve always had pretty great directors, a star-studded cast (and Tom Cruise…), and usually feature great effects and acting. There’s just something about it that doesn’t hold up compared with the Bourne series, let alone Bond. I actually enjoyed Mission: Impossible III quite a bit, and even reviewed it (back when I didn’t write nearly as much…oh, to be him again…). The third installment was directed by J.J. Abrams, and his production company was still involved on the fourth and most recent one, which I think serves the movie well. This time out, however, it’s directed by Brad Bird.
What else has he directed?
Four movies. The other three, besides this one, are Ratatouille, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles.
Seriously.
So, for a director’s first time out with live-action, he did an unbelievable job. What Bird brought to this film, above all else, was a sense of fun. I can safely say I haven’t had this much fun at a movie in quite a long time. It was paced well, it was witty and genuinely funny at parts, the action consisted of some ridiculous set-pieces spread across Eastern Europe, India and Dubai, and the actors were at their best.
The story itself was somewhat simple, having the IMF framed by a villain set on remaking the world after nuclear war. He steals a set of Russian nuclear launch codes, in hopes of getting the world’s countries to annihilate each other, leaving the Earth “wiped clean” so that humanity can re-build. Thus, due to the framing, “Ghost Protocol” is enacted where the IMF is “disavowed,” leaving them to their own devices apart from the support of the United States government.
The team this time out consists of Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and their leader, Tom Cruise (the only one that’s made it through all four outings now). Renner and Pegg serve their purposes well, with Renner as something of a “straight man” and Pegg as the comedic odd-ball. I’d never seen Patton before, but she performed admirably. Cruise, of course, is Cruise. He’s always done well in this role, though the last two outings of the franchise, you can see an “aging” in the character, where Ethan Hunt is gradually more experienced, more grounded, and less “action star”-y (like he was in Mission: Impossible 2…then again, that was a John Woo film…).
The set-pieces in this film were phenomenal as well. There’s been quite a bit of news on the Dubai scenes where Cruise is climbing on the outside of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and believe you me, those scenes were ridiculous. Due to movie timing, we ended up seeing the movie in IMAX and that scene alone made the price of admission worth it. There were other chase scenes, a desert sand storm, and your typical gadgetry that made for excellent special effects and a wonderful spectacle, but the scenes in Dubai were glorious. There’s another scene toward the end of the movie where Tom Cruise and the villain, code-named “Cobalt,” are fighting in an Indian parking garage: one of those that is automated to elevate your car through the middle of a tall, concrete structure (kinda like one of these), and then drop it off for you. The choreography to get each actor in the right place as the “arms” carrying cars were moved in and out was very impressive.
My one knock on the movie was with the villain, “Cobalt.” It’s not that he was played poorly, or that the world-ending dilemma wasn’t dire enough. I just didn’t feel connected to the villain to any great degree. He was there, he was sinister…but I just didn’t care too much. Maybe it’s because I know how these movies tend to be resolved. I just wasn’t very engaged by him. The sense of urgency was the threat of a nuclear launch: not the villain himself. It’s something I can overlook, but more could have been done in that area.
In the end, it was pretty awesome. I’m certainly interested to see what Brad Bird does next, as he brought all the fun from his cartoon work to a live action film. It’s as if he said “what’s something we thought we could only do in a cartoon…’cause I want to do that with Tom Cruise.”