Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Review

After I saw Mission Impossible 3, I didn’t want there to be another installment in the Tom Cruise action series. After seeing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I cannot wait to see Mission Impossible 5.

*Spoilers Ahead*

The problem with number 3 (and other action flicks) is that they focus too highly on love stories and romance. In Ghost Protocol, you won’t really experience any of that until the last 5 minutes leaving the rest of the movie to just be a great action flick and it is one of the best action movies I have seen in a while.

The movie starts out with Ethan Hunt in a prison and he is being rescued by two IMF operatives, Benji (Simon Pegg in his usual comic relief role) and Jane (Paula Patton who actually manages to hold her own throughout the movie). We aren’t told much about why Ethan is in the prison but it makes for a fun action scene with Ethan going having a clear exit but instead, he goes deeper in to rescue another inmate. This then sends Ethan through scores of guards and inmates, fighting his way out in some really well done fight scenes.

Without giving too much away about what happens next, the Kremlin blows up and Ethan and his team (including Jeremy Renner’s somewhat boring character, Brandt) are blamed for it. So, they are then on the run but learn that there is a plot to blow up the world and are the only ones who can stop it. While the plot of the movie may seem a little extreme having someone try to blow up the world, it works well and is quite easy to follow.

Upon learning of the plot to blow up the world, the team heads to Dubai and the movie really ramps up. Not only are we treated to a very suspenseful scene with Tom Cruise scaling the hotel, we also get a tense scene of a deal going down (thankfully, masks aren’t used as much as they used to be), and then it goes into a great chase scene through a sandstorm. That scene involves some really cool driving and ends with a really giant car crash. Essentially, for a span of 40 minutes, you will be on the edge of your seat not knowing what will happen next.

Tom Cruise is the angriest runner you will ever see.

 Again, without giving too much away, the team travels to a very lavish party (with a really good scene involving Brandt and a magnetic suit) that has Jane seducing a billionaire in order to stop the nuclear device from detonating. After learning what they need, we are then treated to a final action scene with Tom Cruise going up against the bad guy in a really well done fight in a vehicle parking garage. The amount of brutality they packed into the scene was awesome an even though the bad guy seemed way too old to be putting up a good fight, it was still really exciting.

After the climax of the movie, Ving Rhames is put into the movie in a very short cameo that felt shoehorned in. We are then given a very short ‘love story’ scene that felt necessary in the context of the film but was still pretty boring. Luckily, the film ends and we are left wondering if there could be a sequel and hopefully there will be. Ghost Protocol is easily the best Mission Impossible movie to date.