Mission: Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol, review

 

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Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol 

Dir: Brad Bird; starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg

Tom Cruise  is out to prove something. When is he not? Of all modern movie stars, he may be the one most eager for constant validation, as if he’d curl up and die if we ever thought he was past it, or merely coasting. See, he can play funny and bald (Tropic Thunder), mean and murderous (Collateral), or a Nazi (Valkyrie), if required. Today, Cruise must prove that there’s fresh life in the Mission: Impossible franchise, though, in fairness, the commercially underperforming third one was pretty solid. How better to do it than jump, in person, off the tallest building in the world?

The Dubai section in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, in which Cruise spiders his way up the face of the Burj Khalifa, then sprints down it as if trying to break the vertical 800m record, proves everything Cruise wanted it to, above all that he’s picked the right director to make these set pieces fly. It’s better still in Imax.

Brad Bird worked wonders on The Incredibles, which isn’t even his best movie (that would be 1999’s The Iron Giant), but it’s the one that sets the tone for this kind of gravity-defying ensemble caper. As there, the script surrounds Cruise with a differently gifted family of fellow operatives, including a faithful pet (Simon Pegg’s Benji), a lovely but platonic sidekick (Paula Patton), and an “enigmatic” new buddy (Jeremy Renner), who must collectively prevent a nuclear strike, mainly by running around with cool gizmos, and jet-setting to the most urgently photogenic places on Earth.

Their raid on the Kremlin is pretty special. “For a moment there, I thought you said the Kremlin!” exclaims the reliably chummy Pegg, with a fast-fading laugh. There are launch codes that need pilfering, and Cruise must impersonate a Russian general, complete with stick-on moustache, to get them past security. It’s a little like a KGB-themed Valkyrie spoof. Then there’s a guard at the end of a corridor, and they set about playing the most hi-tech version of grandmother’s footsteps yet devised. It involves a foldaway screen, a projection thingy and… well, best just see it. They inch forward, doing a heart-in-mouth impression of an empty corridor. All told, it’s top Bird: “Tension hasn’t been as high since the Cuban missile crisis!” says someone, and you tend to agree.
Pegg’s comic relief is all well and good, and there’s some kind of friends-with-benefits situation going on between Cruise and Renner, who plays a highly-strung analyst called Brandt, complete with quips such as: “Next time, I get to seduce the rich guy!” It all feels like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
If there’s a downside to Bird’s largesse, it’s the trouble he has getting us from one exciting bit to the next – a chronic problem ever since Brian De Palma’s madly disjointed first instalment.
Michael Nyqvist’s Hendricks, a dour terrorist-cum-profiteer intent on nuclear apocalypse, is a serviceable villain at best, and a rather faceless one (literally so, with all the usual mask-play) who just keeps popping up with his briefcase in different exotic locales.
The plotting has a glumly generic quality, and the down-time could have done with some snappier punchlines: it’s crying out for more jokes about Russians making a comeback as the baddies du jour, so that we don’t just feel we’re watching one of the early Brosnan Bonds with a tech upgrade.
Still, a lot of credit goes to Cruise here, who’s succeeded over these four films in making Ethan Hunt into a strangely intriguing alter ego. Hunt, like Cruise, is itchily uncomfortable in his own skin – they’re both drawn to disguise – and we spot signs of fatigue, of here-we-go-again, which give him mature grit and appeal.
The movies may force Cruise to show off, to scale mountains and skyscrapers like a sinewy circus performer, but those gritted pearly whites betray an underlying reluctance: when Pegg pats him on the back in dubious reassurance before the Burj ascent, you feel a weird jolt of sympathy for the star, however much he’s pocketing. Then he’s out and clambering, 124 floors up, with a sandstorm brewing on the horizon, and the raw thrill of vertigo sweeps you up and away.