Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol


Photo #3
***1/2 stars

No recent blockbuster does a better job at creating organic action than Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the best action movie of the year. If you’re going to kick-start a franchise back into high gear and avoid staleness, you better do it right. Many can’t say that. This franchise installment can. 

Tom Cruise is underrated. Yes, the biggest movie star on the planet is underrated. Why? Because no one can do what he does. I dare you to find another actor that would hang from the highest building in the world by one wire and then beg for multiple takes in the process. On screen, the man is a perfectionist. The true action star is still alive. His name is Tom Cruise. And he isn’t going anywhere. 

The movie picks up with Ethan Hunt in prison, only to be immediately broken out of in the first scene. But things are just getting started. Hunt and his team must track down a terrorist named Hendricks, who may be on his way to launching nuclear weapons towards American soil. In one captivating scene, the IMF team breaks into the Kremlin and attempts to take him down. Not only does it end with the Kremlin being blown into pieces, but Ethan Hunt and company are blamed for it. IMF has been disavowed. Now they must stop Hendricks to avoid a nuclear war and to prove their innocence. 

With great stakes and stunning set pieces, Ghost Protocol delivers. I’d like to discuss the one scene everyone is talking about. You know, that scene. The one where Tom Cruise climbs, runs, hangs, and flies around the highest floors of the tallest building in the world (the Burj Khalifa in Dubai) and creates such an outstanding scene because of it. No CGI. No bullshit. This is real, scary filmmaking. It will leave you breathless. The rest of the movie manages to be about the same. 

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