The Mission: Impossible movies have gone through a lot of changes in the last fifteen years. Yep, fifteen years since Ethan Hunt(Tom Cruise) tackled his first mission, designed to intricate detail by Brian De Palma. Perhaps more than any other, Mission: Impossible has felt the heavy impact of each of it's four different directors, with De Palma's film more espionage heavy, and subsequent filmmakers John Woo and J.J. Abrams going more for spectacle, huge action set pieces and easier missions to follow. Ghost Protocol is so awe inspiring in it's scale that it somehow manages to make Abrams' Mission: Impossible III look tame by comparison. If there was any doubt that this franchise and it's star have a lot of juice left, then Ghost Protocol should emphatically put those fears to rest.
Nothing in the world of Mission: Impossible is ever done small, not even what should be a simple extraction of IMF leader, Ethan Hunt, from a Russian prison. The snatch and grab explodes into a whirlwind of bone crunching violence, but it's only the first and the least destructive of explosions to come. His rescue thrusts Hunt immediately back into the game with the rest of his squad: computer tech turned agent, Benji(Simon Pegg); and the vengeful Jane(the super sexy Paula Patton). Their mission, which they quickly choose to accept, is to bust into the Kremlin and discover the identity of a nuclear war obsessed rogue codenamed Cobalt(Michael Nyqvist). The mission goes south quickly, partly due to the team's lack of cohesion, and things quite literally blow up in their faces. Blamed for the Kremlin's destruction, the entire IMF is disavowed in destructive fashion, leaving Hunt and his squad alone to do whatever's necessary to find the real culprit.
Saddled by a stiff and secretive "analyst" by the name of Brandt(Jeremy Renner), the search takes the team from Moscow to the highest reaches of Dubai. With Oscar nominated director Brad Bird(The Incredibles) at the helm, he designs each epic sequence with the limitless imagination of a skilled animator. The centerpiece is an eye popping marvel in which Cruise scales the Burj Khalifa, otherwise known as the tallest building in the entire world. Seen in IMAX, it's the type of white knuckle, breath taking experience we rarely get to see because it calls for so much more than just a cool camera trick or two. It calls for a level of detail so fine it puts us right there on the side of that wall with Cruise, cringing at his every movement, and gasping at the unimaginable heights. But the entire film is full of moments like this, such as a blistering chase through the Dubai streets as a sandstorm rages. Bird shows a technical skill that is more refined than that of someone like Michael Bay, who may be great at blowing things up but not at blowing them up in a way you've never seen before. Under Bird's guidance, nothing in Mission: Impossible seems all that impossible. It's just incredible.
The third act doesn't quite have the steam of earlier parts of the film, as it becomes imperative for each character to unburden themselves of any long held secrets and put to bed any issues. Suffice it to say, some characters are more than they appear, which should be nothing new if you've seen any of these movies before. Cruise and Patton get the lion's share of the character work, as well as the scenes that require the greatest physicality. Cruise may be older and a touch flabbier, but he truly hasn't lost a step in all these years. He's just as intense as ever. Patton, whose beauty is matched only by her athleticism(she has bigger arms than half the cast), is probably the best butt kicking vixen this franchise has ever had, which is really saying something. Let's just say there would be a lot of very happy traitors rotting in prisons if the government sent a woman like Patton to seduce and coerce.
Mission: Impossible III wasn't quite the success that anybody thought it would be, and with some of the other box office troubles faced by Cruise's other films, it was thought that maybe this would be his last go 'round. Jeremy Renner was brought in, with the fast rising action hero(and head of a million other franchises) positioned to possibly take over. Renner is solid, and he makes for a worthwhile addition to the team. But this is Tom Cruise's show. It always has been, and if Mission: Impossible continues to be as much of a joy as this, it always will be.
