Now, I have to be honest to begin with. My mind is a little fuzzy on the previous Mission Impossible films. It's been so long since I saw the first two, and the third one was good, but I just cannot seem to remember much about it. Is it the hectic lifestyle that I lead or my terrible memory? Probably a mixture of both...
So, I will be completely objective with this review as I have no previous (memorable) opinion on the Mission Impossible series. You may think that's a little silly, considering I just went to see the fourth film in a film series, but this film is starting to emulate the Bond series. What I mean by this is that each film is becoming it's own tied up mission with only a tiny narrative strand connecting it to the previous film (Ethan Hunt's (Cruise) wife, in the case of MI:Ghost Protocol).
The film started off really well. It hooked you in immediately by launching us in the middle of a mission and then breaking Ethan Hunt (Cruise) out of his predicament. It was a bit of a shift back towards the typical spy film fare to be honest, considering that the main thing I remember that made MI:III stand out was JJ Abrams distinct style of directing. With MI: Ghost Protocol, the directing is a pretty standard fare, and the story slips a little into cliche Bond situations in the middle of the film. For example, we are taken to the Burj Khalifa Hotel in Dubai, which provides us with a nice nod to the second film when Hunt starts climbing on the outside of the hotel (remember the cliff climbing from MI2?!) However, a window gets taken out in the hotel room, and then a girl on girl fight starts in the same hotel room a few minutes later. All the way through the fight scene I was thinking, "Someone's going to go through that window!"
And low and behold, they did. We didn't get a money shot of them falling from the world's tallest building (is it still classed as the world's tallest building? Either way, it's pretty huge), but we can hear them scream on the way down.
Now, like I said, the film suffers slightly in the second act and never really recovers from when it starts to use cheesy and convenient 'spy film moments' and even has Hunt say "Mission complete!" when he tries to push the big red button to save the day. Yes, the characters do call out how cheesy he was in saying that line in the next scene, but MI: Ghost Protocol seems to welcome the cheese moments this time.
Having said that, Simon Pegg was brilliant with his timely comic moments when the tension was lifted. I found him to be slightly overrated when he first came onto the scene (I think people were too quick to praise him before he truely found his feet) but here he shows just how to deliver comic moments without coming across too slapstick.
Overall, I would say MI: Ghost Protocol is starting to take the Mission Impossible series into the dangerous territory of becoming generic spy films, but it's still worth the watch. A much stronger narrative link between the films is needed if it were to try and be different to the rest, but if you want tense and thrilling action sequences (the climb on the outside of the Burj Khalifa really had my heart going!) then this is a film for you!
*** 1/2 / *****
No comments:
Post a Comment