ACTION; 2hr 12min
STARRING: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg
Upwardly mobile: Cruise
The M:I franchise is customised to athletically showcase its unflagging star, as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, in a stunning bunch of Dream On settings while playing fast and tight with say-what? plot-lines. True to form, Ghost Protocol gets going in Budapest, then cuts to Moscow where Agent Ethan is serving time in prison (Don’t ask. Please.), from which he is sprung by fellow agents Benji Dunn (Paul’s Pegg, lightening everything up) and Jane Carter (Patton, less inclined to be chirpy). When their subsequent infiltration of the Kremlin blows up in everyone’s faces, the US president initiates Ghost Protocol, which leaves Ethan and his three compadres (Renner being now on board) out in the cold. Meanwhile, the crafty nutjob who did blow the place up (Michael Nyqvist) is a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.
Complicated? Somewhat. But pretty damned spectacular, too, as the team gets busy in razzley-dazzley Dubai. Versatile director Brad Bird (Ratatouille) goes all out with big-toy trimmings and Cruise, in top shape, had me at Hello! What is he doing scaling that dizzying building like a chiselled fly? There’s even a full-tilt Hollywood sandstorm. With pockets this deep, nothing is impossible.
