For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
The Impression:
I love the Mission Impossible films. Big, at times
stupid, spy novels that feature a rotating cast of
characters solving intricate architectural puzzles with
laser beams and face masks. Throw in Brad Bird, the
ultra-talented director of The Iron Giant and The
Incredibles, in his very first live-action picture and
there’s the makings of cinematic history.
The Reality:
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the best action
movie in years ... for the first two-thirds. From the
opening moments to right after the amazing Dubai scene with
Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt swinging perilously off the side of
the Dubai Spire, the film rockets along from enormous,
amazingly composed action set-piece to enormous, amazingly
composed action set-piece. With perhaps the best use of
IMAX, well, ever, director Brad Bird thrusts you in to the
storyline of IMF being shut down due to falsified criminal
activities and Ethan Hunt and his team (a fantastic Simon
Pegg and a too buff for my taste Paula Patton) having to
race against time to find and stop a mad man from nuking the
world in the name of piece. I love a spy film when the usual
high-tech solutions are stripped away and the team has to
use shoddy equipment and their own smarts to figure out just
what’s going on: the first two-thirds of this film are that.
Funny, exciting, breathless, I would’ve tossed this in to
the top ten of the year if it had been able to keep that
pace. And it could’ve, the talent of Brad Bird is there, the
cast is obviously having a good time, and the script is deft
and witty in the way classically amazing films always are -
low impact with a just a hint of emotional heft. For reasons
unknown though the film u-turns at about the hour and twenty
mark and lags - the pace slows, the action dwindles and Bird
unloads all of the emotional secrets of the film. The final
moments in India feel like diluted versions of the film’s
first two acts and winded as I was from the prior intensity,
it seems flat, the wit squandered, the characters no longer
gleaming. Call it a first time action director’s ball-drop,
but this could’ve been a classic if Bird had managed to
stick the landing. Regardless, it’s a great film.
The Lesson:
A bad ending is like bad coffee at the end of a meal, that
taste just lingers.
- Noah Sanders
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