January 18^th 2012

Review: 6/10 Can of Whoop Ass

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

In the latest installment in the Mission Impossible series, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) goes rogue with a small team of new companions to stop a nuclear threat. “Ghost Protocol” is the virtual shutdown of the IMF (short for “impossible mission force”, not “international monetary fund”), the black ops government operation that specializes in foreign espionage, and employs Hunt and his team. But though “Ghost Protocol” is supposed to be some department ending disavowal, Hunt’s team operates much the same as in the previous films, with technology and intelligence to spare. Said simply, this reboot of the MI franchise is nothing new or better in any way – but it deserves credit for at least not being any worse.

Ghost Protocol starts with Sawyer (from Lost) stealing something. When he thinks he’s gotten away, a lady assassin, by the name of Moreau (not a doctor), shoots him and takes what he’s stolen. After IMF agents Carter and Dunn (Paula Patton and Simon Pegg) break Ethan out of a Serbian prison, their mission (if they choose to accept it) becomes getting back what Moreau has stolen. After such a build up, I was half-expecting something interesting to be in this stolen case. But it was just launch codes. It’s always launch codes. If launch codes are so goddamn important, you’d think a government would just buy a safe from a casino and be done with it. When was the last time you heard about a casino’s safe getting robbed? Anyway, Hunt’s newly-assembled team must infiltrate the Kremlin to find information about the person (code name Cobalt) suspected of hiring Moreau to steal the launch codes (though she ended up doing little more than walk down an alley at the right time). Shit goes sour and the Kremlin gets blown to bits, which is quickly blamed on the United States, causing Hunt’s beloved IMF to enter Ghost Protocol. Cut off from his operations department, Hunt decides to chase Cobalt with his rag tag team of leftover agents, with one more added in the form of Analyst/ex-agent William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). As a parting gift, IMF informs Hunt that Moreau will be selling the launch codes to Cobalt at the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai. Because, when I want to swap baseball cards or recipes, I usually head to the Laundromat. But when I want to swap something important – like nuclear launch codes – I head to the tallest building in the world.

The choosing of locales seems random in MI:4. It’s as if the writers didn’t care about connecting the disparate elements of the script – only that the individual locations were cool enough. So we go from the Kremlin in Russia, to the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, to a playboy mansion in India. How any of these places coincide is beyond me, but they all leave a visual impression, so who cares, I guess. Plus, none of the locations are under-utilized. Inside the Kremlin, everything reeks of order and burgeoning levels of security. In Dubai, much is made of the height of the tower and the sandstorms that attack the city. In India, we visit a soiree at a lavish palace and then rush through the crowded streets of Mumbai, though there are never any people around when the shooting begins, of course. While the settings don’t necessarily matter to the story, the involvement of recognizable landmarks offers a heightened sense of the stakes being played for. Plus, everything looks hella cool.

Ultimately, Hunt and his team thwart the nuclear missile plot and all is well; Cobalt is killed and his odd dream of using nuclear arms to accomplish peace dies with him. I would wager to say that for most people, this was a fine resolution to the story. I’ve never considered a Mission Impossible movie like I might a Saw movie – where each film depends upon the ones that came before it. The Mission Impossible movies are just spy thrillers. The new movies don’t have to be sequels; they can just be stand alones. The plots don’t have to intertwine or overlap and we don’t need a back story. The films are fine without it. But Ghost Protocol tried to get fancy and ended up settling things on an awkward note.

I’ve read that this will be Tom Cruise’s last go round with the series, and I’m all for offering him a proper swan song, but the last ten minutes of the film confused me. Apparently, Renner’s whole back story about failing to protect Hunt’s wife in Croatia was a lie, because her death was faked. Hunt’s retaliation on the supposed Serbian assassins that killed his wife landed him in a Serbian prison, but it turns out that was a calculated plan as well, done to make friends with people who could offer information on Cobalt for the next mission. And while I tried to make sense of this, I took for granted that Hunt’s true motivation was to protect his wife. And then his wife makes an appearance. And she waves. And then…nothing. Apparently, Hunt has decided to stay away from his wife to assure her safety, which is noble enough, but what does the rest of that back story have to do with that decision? Couldn’t he have decided that in the last movie? Why was he in Croatia? Why were Serbians coming to kill him? Why did the IMF allow Renner to retract his agent status out of guilt, when they knew Hunt’s wife was still alive? When you attempt to throw a surprise into a story, all your bases have to be covered. Usually, the simpler the better. If Cruise wanted to leave the MI franchise with his character an angelic martyr willing to sacrifice his happiness for his wife’s safety, there were plenty of simpler ways to present that ending – most without convoluted back stories involving fake deaths and Serbian assassins.

As usual, the strength of the movie is the imagination and utilization of technology. Though the entire series is a rip-off of the Bond movies, including the insertion of advanced gadgetry, it has to be applauded for its seamless introduction of such cool gizmos. There are sticky mitts that allow Hunt to climb up the side of a building (suction cups have nothing on these bad boys); there is a car with a windshield-size, optical navigation system; there is even a mobile magnet cart that can keep a grown man floating in mid air. Now, of course, the script has to write in situations to utilize these mind-boggling techno-wonders, but the accommodation is never that intrusive. It’s usually just small things, like for instance, when Ethan uses an invisible reflection wall to sneak into the archive room underneath the Kremlin. For this device to work, Ethan needs a long hallway that is narrow enough for the projection screen to cover. Further, he needs to have a stationary security guard that won’t bump into the damn thing. Then, he needs the door he wants to be in the middle of the hallway, as the screen can’t camouflage him past the borders of the walls or in open areas. But none of this accommodation is that important. It’s cool to see the reflection screen dupe the clueless security guard and to watch agent Dunn further confound him with an equally cool device that creates sound effects that appear to be coming from other places. The stars of the film, for me, are these magical gadgets.

Cruise is unflappable as Hunt, never showing much emotion or anxiety. His stolid distance sets the tone for the rest of the characters: Renner and Patton are equally serious and devoted to the mission. Pegg stands out a bit more as the cliché comedic technology nerd and he’s likeable as always.

Overall, this is a straightforward movie. There are no great surprises or innovations as relative to the other films; it’s just a franchise churning out another typical effort. With no particularly unique style, the Mission Impossible franchise has never lost its focus on creating films that are watchable and entertaining enough. Even if Cruise hangs up his Ethan Hunt persona for good (he turns FIFTY years old this year!), I expect Mission Impossible to hang around for the foreseeable future – though don’t count on this being the last sandstorm Cruise outruns, crisis he averts, or world he saves.