The Plot:
An IMF agent is killed while trying to extract nuclear launch codes in order to stop a man codenamed "Cobalt" from starting nuclear war. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is called in to do the job and stop Cobalt. He and his team (Simon Pegg and Paula Patton) are ordered by IMF to go to Russia and infiltrate the Kremlin. Their mission, to find the true identity of Cobalt and let the authorities arrest him. The mission goes well, however, someone piggy backs Ethan's team's radio frequency and alerts Russian authorities. As Ethan and his team manage to escape, the Kremlin is bombed and Ethan ends up unconscious. Ethan ends up in an hospital and escapes calling for an extraction. He is picked up by the IMF Secretary and his analyst, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). The Secretary tells Ethan that the President of the US has shut down IMF and disavowed the agents. On the way, the Secretary mentions if Ethan were to escape, there could nothing he could do. As he explains this, he gets killed. Ethan and Brandt escape to an unmarked train car with IMF gadgets in order to stop Cobalt. It's when Cobalt's identity is revealed to be Kurt Hendriks a nuclear strategist. Ethan and his team discover that Hendriks is going to Dubai to buy the codes from the assassin who killed the first IMF agent. The team reaches Dubai and hatches a plan in order to stop Hendriks, get him and the assassin. However, the gadgets that they're using aren't high quality and must improvise the plan. During the meet, Hendriks escapes with the codes and Ethan tries to track him down in a sandstorm, only to loose him at the last second. But, Ethan has a plan and he and his team head to Mumbai, India. After some spy stuff and whatnot, Ethan corners Hendriks and the two fight. Oh, and Hendriks did launch a nuke towards the US and Ethan has to stop the nuke from hitting US soil. Ethan does eventually stop the nuke and it's mission accomplished.
The Good:
As Mission Impossible movies go, this is a pretty fun flick to watch. The stunts are jaw dropping and the action's pretty decent. It's pretty funny to see Hawkeye be in an Mission Impossible movie but, Jeremy Renner does a good job. Some of the special effects are decent, and there are some good lines.
The Bad:
Maybe it's just me, but not once did I feel tension during any of the action scenes. For example, when Ethan Hunt is climbing the world's tallest building, I never felt like there was a moment where he -might- fail. Take the scene from the first movie where Hunt is hacking into the computer room with all the security safe guards. I felt tension in that scene, and you're thinking that Hunt could fail at any moment. Ghost Protocol never keeps you on edge, even when there's a nuke hurtling towards earth. As for the nuke part, well...I assumed that the US would have, I don't know...early warning systems just in case nuclear threats were coming in? It's not like this missile flew below radar. It freaking went into the stratosphere where something could pick it up, right? Now, for Hendriks. I get that he's this genius and is evil, but I have a hard time believing that he could best a trained IMF agent in hand to hand combat. I'm sorry, but that's pushing the immersion for me (yeah, so is the nuke). I mentioned there were some decent special effects, but there were some bad ones too. When Ethan is running away from explosions, you can tell that Tom Cruise is against a green screen and you don't feel the danger. There's another scene when Ethan is chasing Hendriks out of the hotel, and the camera angle goes to a bird eye view. Ethan is sprinting towards Hendriks and Hendriks takes off like the flash. How is a sixty plus year old man outrunning Hunt? Good movie, but there's alot of moments where it's not believable.
Overall:
Ghost Protocol is a fun movie, and despite all the negative things I just said, I like it. Yeah, there are a lot of moments where you're trying not to laugh, but it has it's good moments too.
Rating:
3.5 Tom Cruises sprinting out of 5.
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