Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Movie Review – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

I would like to start off by saying; I am a fan of the Mission Impossible movies. From one to three, I liked the action, the plot, the twists, the acting etc. So you could imagine what my first reaction was, when I heard that a fourth one was coming out. I was hyped up and ready to see it, immediately. But at second thought, I realized that this is the fourth movie coming out. You know when you see a movie you really like, and then they make a sequel to it that’s absolutely horrible? Well, Mission Impossible had two excellent sequels in a row, and to live up to that for the fourth time, is not easy.

The story starts with a spy who is working for the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) on a mission with a group. However, he is killed by a female assassin named Sabine Moreau. The team leader, Jane Carter, and the third member of the group Benji Dunn (played by Simon Pegg), extract Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise and is the main character in all the movies) and Bogdan from a Russian prison. Soon after, Tom Cruise is recruited by the IMF to infiltrate the Secret Kremlin archives and locate files concerning Cobalt. Cobalt is a code name for a man who has unknown plans but obviously has something big in mind.

Along with Hunt on the mission are Carter and Dunn. The mission runs smoothly until an anonymous person informs the Russians of the group. A bomb explodes in the Kremlin, causing the Russian to declare that it was an undeclared act of war. So the president of United States activates “Ghost Protocol”. It is a black operation that disavows the IMF. Ethan Hunt and his group are chosen to execute the mission but before everything is planned, the secretary of IMF is killed by the Russian police, forcing Hunt and an intelligence analyst named William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) to collaborate on the mission. The team, now with four members, identify Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks, a nuclear specialist who wants to start a nuclear war for the benefit of evolution (the best will survive the war and that way, we evolve). He set up the bombing of Kremlin but needs codes that are currently held by Sabine Moreau to activate the nuclear bombs. They arrange a meeting in a very tall building in Dubai. Ethan’s team intrudes the meeting by convincing them that they are making a deal with each other when in fact, they are in separate rooms, making a deal with Ethan in one of the rooms and Carter in the other. This mission runs smoothly again in the beginning, but just in the end, the mission goes haywire. Sabine is eventually killed but Hendricks gets away with the codes.

While, Ethan consults Bogdan to find out that Hendricks will be in Dubai, William explains to Jane and Benji why he is really skilled in field work. He explains that he was once an agent who was in charge in leading a mission to protect Ethan and his wife, Jane, secretly. Ethan had gone out of the hotel, leaving Jane. Brandt followed Ethan and left his two men to guard Jane but when he returned, he found Jane and the two agents dead. He believed that Ethan went out for revenge but got caught by the Russian police and that this was the reason why Ethan was in jail in the beginning of the movie. After explaining this, the whole team goes to Mumbai, where the climax takes place.

After they successfully save the world, Ethan has a talk with Jeremy where he unravels the actual events that took place during that regretful night.

I was amazed by this movie. Miraculously, it had managed to continue the story of Ethan Hunt in an interesting way. Furthermore, in some ways, it could have perhaps exceeded the previous movies. The acting was good in the previous ones (especially by some support roles) but I found that Tom Cruise’s acting in this one was a little bit stronger than usual. Also, I believe that this can possibly be Jeremy Renner’s best act so far. He is a rising star in Hollywood but I did not find his acting so strong in some of his previous movies, such as, The Town. So if you read this little movie review before Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol goes off the cinema, I recommend watching it on the big screen.
-Samuel