The 'Mission Impossible' movie franchise

Here's a review of the latest:
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Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - review

The latest instalment of the action franchise is a return to form, with some classic Tom Cruise – and a hint of Alan Sugar

Catherine Shoard

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 December 2011 18.57 GMT


Tom Cruise reprises his role as Ethan Hunt in a scene from Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol". Photograph: AP

Size aside, there aren't a lot of obvious similarities between Tom Cruise and Alan Sugar. But as the minutes tick by in Mission Impossible 4, more and more materialise: the unimpeachable authority; the love of a nice motor; the flashes of humour beneath the gruff stubble; the ease with hi-tech hardware (no doubt Amstrad would have branched out into contact lenses that also function as photocopiers, had Sugar not sold his shares to Sky).

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Production year: 2011
Country: USA
Directors: Brad Bird
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise
More on this film

And then, two-thirds of the way through, the two merge forever. Cruise, reprising his role as undercover operative Ethan Hunt, summons his crew for a rendezvous on a runway. There's the sexy one (Paula Patton), the brainy one (Simon Pegg), the mysterious one (Jeremy Renner): all team players with their own special skill set to bring to the table. Where are they off to, they ask, for the next bit of their mission? Mumbai, Cruise replies, to an appreciative chorus of ooohs and aaahs. India, eh! In a private jet! Coo! Maybe next week, if they win, they'll get to go for a day trip to a luxury spa just outside Reading.

Already hailed as a return to form for the franchise – now 16 years old and in need of a lock and load before James Bond leaps back on to the scene – Ghost Protocol's chief innovation is its choice of director. This is Brad Bird's live-action debut: he's a Pixar whiz-kid who's overseen the likes of Ratatouille and The Incredibles, a background that's left him unfussed about plausibility and eager to keep things upbeat (the previous instalment was deemed a bit of a downer on account of its long rendition scene). Plus, he's also enough of a newbie to know that this is not his show.

For, as the opening credits remind you in words as big as a bus, this is a Tom Cruise movie. Not only has he produced, he's surrounded himself on screen only by those with negative charisma. Pegg alone is allowed to make a play for our affections, and only if he stays a weedy geek forever almost muffing things.

It works: even those allergic to Cruise would struggle to resist his magnetism grinning one-handed from the highest skyscraper in the world, cool as a cucumber, ripped as celery. The plot barely matters: Ethan must outwit foreigners from other films – The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo's Michael Nyqvist, Slumdog Millionaire's Anil Kapoor – in a way that allows for maximum attractive globetrotting as well as optimum global box office.

Thus the baddie is nordic-ish but motivated not by political hostility, but by the iffy conviction that only once the world has succumbed to nuclear annihilation will there be lasting peace.

Yes, there is an on-trend nod to current affairs – "To your government," someone tells Ethan, "a potential terrorist is a terrorist" – but it's so glib that it could be taken as a truism whether you thought such a stance was desirable or not.

It's an opportunistic endeavour – you suspect locations may have been in place, deals done with car firms and tourist boards before the script was given a thought. But such fiscal sense seeps through to the final product, too. This is a good value, bang for your buck, old-fashioned blockbuster that makes up in action what it lacks in soul. Sir Alan would approve.

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