Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
2011
****
Director: Brad Bird
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Samuli Edelmann, Vladimir Mashkov, Anil Kapoor, Josh Holloway
After the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) team is blamed for a bombing in Kremlin, they must go underground to track down a stolen Russian nuclear launch device and its activation codes before it's too late. The fourth film in the franchise doesn't make any radical tweaks to the formula. Ethan Hunt is still an admirably skilled action hero without any personality whatsoever. Nevertheless, the new director, Brad Bird, makes by far the best film in the series by telling a streamlined story with cool gadgetry and some spectacular action set pieces. The mid-section in Dubai is the highlight: first Hunt climbs the outside wall of Burj Khalifa and then chases the bad guy through a sandstorm. The downside of this fabulously entertaining scene is that everything that follows feels somewhat underwhelming.
