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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Film)

by Erin Free | December 13, 2011 09:41 | Edited December 13, 2011 09:42

Despite brilliant action sequences, Brad Bird’s live action debut is disappointingly an incoherent and silly mess, which curiously sees Tom Cruise taking a backseat.

With Mission: Impossible 3, director J.J. Abrams ingeniously grounded the high flying spy franchise by making it personal. He brought the fight to Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt's homefront, stringing up his loved ones in a web of bone rattling excitement and emotional involvement that quickly obliterated the memories of John Woo's silly second instalment, and brought to mind the more impressive elements of Brian De Palma's savvy but often incomprehensible first effort. In his disappointing live action directorial debut, animation maestro Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) somehow makes Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol a shambolic combination of those first two films - silly, cartoonish and incoherent - while ignoring all of the characterisation and emotional heft that made Mission: Impossible 3 such a potent action thriller.

 

The opening sequence of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is so ridiculous and surface-shiny that you might think you're still watching the pre-feature ads. A male-model-handsome spy (Lost's Josh Holloway) jumps off a building while shooting upwards all the way at a rooftop enemy, and then lands ten-storeys-down on a conveniently placed air-bag. He dusts off his Armani leather jacket, and smiles at a beautiful blonde woman walking his way. She then whips out a gun and shoots him, as his iPhone rattles onto the ground with the word, ASSASSIN, flashing in big caps. If that sounds stupid on paper, it looks even worse on the big screen. This horribly wrong-headed scene also forms part of the backstory for IMF agent, Jane Carter (the likeable Paula Patton), which instantly throws the film out of whack. Our focal point of the series is and always will be Tom Cruise's ice cool spy, Ethan Hunt, so Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol instantly gets off on the wrong foot. As always, the actor gives it everything he's got, but he feels poorly served here.

 

From this ridiculous opening gambit, the story devolves into some silliness involving a nuclear terrorist (a confused looking Michael Nyqvist, from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo flicks), and the disavowing of the Impossible Missions Force. Throughout many of the film's admittedly brilliant action sequences (including a stunning scale up a heavens-nudging building in Dubai), Tom Cruise often feels like a passenger, with new guns Paula Patton and The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner, and Mission: Impossible: 3's Simon Pegg, taking on confusingly large roles. As well as this lopsided narrative, director Brad Bird also struggles with pacing. Each out-of-control-freight-train action set piece is followed by a deadening scene of exposition, as each character spells out not just what's happening in the plot, but also their entire past histories, and pointed details that are obviously designed to make them "interesting."

 

While the Mission: Impossible films are obviously designed as pure escapism, the addition of jokey, cheap humour in this fourth instalment undermines much of the characterisation that has been built up over the previous three films. While thrill-junkies will probably feel sated, those with a little more riding on the franchise will probably feel horribly cheated by the decidedly daft Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. We humbly suggest that you choose not to accept this mission...