An elegant movie. There are surprisingly few movies -action movies even fewer- that can be thought of as elegant. It would have been easy for Ghost Protocol to loose itself in cliche characters, plot points, location tropes, or standard shoot'em up movie necessities. On the flip side if a mission impossible movie doesn't pay homage to the genre and all the baggage it carries with it it risks alienating it audience. I found Ghost Protocol elegant for the way in which it paid just enough lip service to cliches to pass the audience test and still went on to blatantly disregard the past in favor of a its own unique story telling.
There were some wonderful things about Ghost Protocol and there were some muddy points. On the plus side, I love basically any movie with Simon Pegg. Ghost Protocol is no exception. He is funny. He can pull of serious, and he just seems to make movies better. Middlingly, Paula Patton was purely acceptable. There were many times when I thought her performance and character were going to turn the corner....but they never did. Jeremy Renner- I like you- but I wish you and Josh Holloway would have switched roles. Josh Holloway should just be in more movies for longer.
Lastly, I would like to vent about the use of Dubai as an "international" background in movies. In the case of Ghost Protocol, I got the feeling like the Dubai government must have just shelled out a crazy tax break to make it irresistible as a location. What was weirder was that most of the team's time in the city was in a unremarkable fancy hotel that did not distinguish itself as being in Dubai. Then when Tom Cruise was chasing down our villain through the streets of Dubai they covered the whole city in a sandstorm so one couldn't see anything. I'd don't think I will understand Dubai.
Ratings:
JJ Abrams: See it
Jon Voight: See it (Prep for your inconceivable return to the franchise in the next installment.)
Spy Masters: Skip it
Wanna-be Spy Mastas: See it
Jet-setters: Skip it
On a scale from Charade to The Man Who Knew to Little, I give Mission Impossible- Ghost Protocol 3.2 out of 5 stars.
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