SIP Movie Review Blog

                                                                                                                             Just saw the best movie of the year: Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise (Top Gun, MI 1, 2, 3), Jeremy Renner (Hurt Locker, The Town), Simon Pegg (MI 3, Star Trek), Paula Patton (Jumping the Broom, Hitch), Michael Nyqvist (All three of the Girl Who… movies from Sweden), and a whole bunch of folks who speak Russian.  We even had a cameo from Ving Rhames who made $7.7 million for a 3 minute walk-on at the end.  

So here we go.  Movie opens with an agent (not Cruise) running from bad guys.  He jumps off buildings, shooting guns as he falls, typical MI stuff.  Ends up meeting an unhappy end, the thing he was carrying is stolen.  Then flash to Tom in a Soviet prison.  The MI team breaks him out, it is pretty impressive.  They are then given a mission to break into the Kremlin; a rouge Russian agent has stolen nuclear launch codes and is planning a strike against the USA.  There is an explosion, the US government issues Ghost Protocol, meaning they disavow any knowledge of the MI team, they are on their own. 

So they now have to go after this mad Russian (played very well by Nyqvist), as he is attempting to buy the codes that were stolen from him by the first agent (which started the movie).  The exchange is to be done in Dubai, in the tallest building in the world.  Of course, our team is able to get into the building, but they want control over rooms numbers, the elevator system, everything.  So they must get to the servers, on the 135 floor.  They are on floor 130, so it should not be that hard.  Simon tells Cruise and Renner he cannot crack the servers electronically, they must go into the server room physically.  And it must be done from outside the building. 

Of course we have tools.  Some nifty gloves that are electronic, Spiderman type, that stick like glue to a surface.  So all Tom has to do is climb up 7 floors, over 4 sections, and he is in.  No hurry, he has 35 minutes.  So out he goes.  Now, if you are scared of heights, this will freak you out.  He is standing on the ledge of the room they are in, having cut out the window, and looking down it is about a mile to the earth.  OK, not a mile, but a really long way.  Wind is blowing, and to add to an already impossible task, a huge sand storm is heading for the hotel. 

Tom goes out, starts up, all going well.  At least until one glove shorts out.  This is probably the most exciting 10 minutes on film.  Not gonna be a scene spoiler, it is really tense; you will need to see it for yourself.  Reader’s Digest version, they get the job done, but aren’t able to stop the exchange.  So we are now in a foot race to catch the Russian, running into the sand storm.  We get into a BMW 6 series convertible, great choice, top down in this weather, but if you are stealing a car, you take what you can get.  Still not able to stop him. 

Tom uses his connections to find out where the next interchange is; turns out they are headed to Mumbai.  There our group gets an invite to a rich young rulers party, a guy who has a satellite that is needed to set off these rockets.  Just amazing what can be done with no money, etc, Tom and the team show up in a one-of-a-kind (literally) BMW prototype, an i8.  Funky car, all hybrid and turbo-diesel, they are looking large.  We are still in a race to stop the Russian, the race goes into a parking garage, which again is one of the most creative parking garage scenes ever done. 

Did we enjoy the movie, absolutely!  Best movie of the year.  OK, so it is still Jan, but best MI movie.  They introduced an anti-gravity suit, cars that we only read about, special effects that were over the top, it was well done.  I would guess Jeremy Renner will be the replacement for Tom in the future.  The movie ends with a set-up for the next segment, with a new assignment “if you decide to accept”.  Clean movie, no sex, no drugs,  not fixated on gory death scenes, lots of technology to keep you interested, and we did not hear the F word ever.  We’ll go with 4.5 nuclear rockets, a great movie.