"Blue is glue," Simon Pegg's Benji helpfully informs IMF secret agent/superhero Ethan Hunt (Cruise) as he's about to climb up the side of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, using only a pair of electronic suction gloves that light up when activated. Referring to the colour of that light, Hunt asks, "And what's red?" "Dead," says Benji, without batting an eyelid.This sequence encapsulates the little that's good about Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the latest entrant in this now 15-year-old cinematic franchise. The aforementioned nail-biting set-piece on the side of the Burj featuring Cruise, defying every bit of the 49 years he has allegedly spent on this planet, forms the centerpiece of this film. This may just be the most breathtaking action movie sequence of the year.
Even if all this sounds like nitpicking, the one thing a Mission: Impossible movie needs is a strong villain. In this case it's the half-baked Hendricks (Swedish actor Nyqvist), a Russian ex-military strategist who wants to start a nuclear war because, well, he thinks it's the right thing to do. He also gets minimal screen-time, even less than Benji. And finally, Cruise, admirable to watch in the action scenes, is at his wooden worst here, barely going beyond his usual gaze-intently-at-something style of acting. Whatever happened to the man we saw not too long ago in Collateral and Tropic Thunder, busting out acting chops no one thought he possessed anymore?
"Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is eye-candy with lots of loopholes. The movie is best experienced in an IMAX theater. Story of the movie is nothing special but the way it's executed is awesome. Dubai shines in the movie, though some shots of the city were factually incorrect. Though a shot of Mumbai's Queen's Necklace is shown, that's where it ends as well. Everything else they portrayed as Mumbai was actually shot in another location. The Indian party scene was shot in Zabeel Saray in Dubai. And they showed Sun TV's TV station as being in Mumbai (when it was actually supposed to be Bangalore), which by the way was being manned by just two security guards! Anil Kapoor's potential was totally wasted and he looked more like a fool in the movie. Lots of continuation errors, though overall, the movie is good for a one time watch."
I too agree with him......
Critical reception
The film has received positive reviews, scoring 93% on the film-critic aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 125 reviews, making it the most acclaimed entry of series. The site's critical consensus is, "Stylish, fast-paced, and loaded with gripping set pieces, the fourth Mission: Impossible is big-budget popcorn entertainment that really works."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying the film "is a terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry". Philippa Hawker of The Sydney Morning Herald gave the film three stars out of five, and said it is "ludicrously improbable, but also quite fun." As Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly analyzed, the movie "brims with scenes that are exciting and amazing at the same time; they're brought off with such casual aplomb that they're funny, too. ... Ghost Protocol is fast and explosive, but it's also a supremely clever sleight-of-hand thriller. Brad Bird, the animation wizard, ... showing an animator's miraculously precise use of visual space, has a playful, screw-tightening ingenuity all his own."
Dan Kois of Slate.com, commenting on the film's craftsmanship and context, said, "Along with [being] many other things — a crackerjack action picture, a smoothly operating product-endorsement machine, a useful guide to the obscuring of Cruise's annoying persona via millions of dollars of special effects — the fourth 'Mission: Impossible' movie also functions as a primer on how to use IMAX technology to immerse an audience. The scenes on the Burj gave me more vertigo than Vertigo.
