Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol
It’s high-tech, slick, completely preposterous and, while it’s not the best of the series (that would be number 1) it’s not the worst (3).
As Katie Holmes said on her wedding night; let’s get one thing straight. Seeing as though this is the fourth instalment of the MI franchise I think it’s time we woke up to the fact that the mission isn’t impossible. Incredible, maybe; improbable, certainly; but impossible, no. Calling it ‘Mission Impossible 4’ is like calling an album ‘The Best Ballads in the World Ever 2’.
Anyway, pedantic semantics aside, what do we have here? Well, we have Ethan “Mike” Hunt and his cohorts trying to prove that they are innocent of blowing up the Kremlin with CGI, a new top-secret explosive code-named “box-office dynamite.” Not really. However, the Kremlin does blow up, and Cruise and co. are framed for it. Will they prove their innocence? Erm, possibly.
I hate to be facetious (no I don’t) but there’s little I can tell you about this film that isn’t implicit from its title. It’s a Mission Impossible film. It does exactly what it says on the highly expensive and glossy tin. It’s high-tech, slick, completely preposterous and, while it’s not the best of the series (that would be number 1) it’s not the worst (3).
I’m trying desperately to avoid the phrase ‘if you liked the other three, you’ll like this one’, but that’s pretty much the size of it. Personally, my disbelief was a little too heavy to suspend for the entire duration of the film, meaning that I occasionally laughed at bits that I wasn’t supposed to. However, I am a particularly joyless and critical individual. If you are too, then I wouldn’t recommend this. Go see a play. If, on the other hand, you are a well-balanced, happy sort who finds explosions entertaining, and you liked the other three, you’ll like this one.
Jay Freeman
