Another Impossible Mission

What an ordeal! I arrived at the cinema complex to find queues longer than the Afganistan food parcel handout station. Finally, once in the theatre a small girl far too young to be watching the film knocked over her popcorn in the seat next to mine. She cried for 20 minutes. As I squirmed to get away from her I dropped my Blackberry and it wouldn’t turn back on. If cinematic enjoyment was my objective, it was fading into mission impossibility!

But then the movie started. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), incarcerated in a Russian prison is set with the mission of retrieving the activation codes for a nuclear warhead. Yet, after what is perceived as a terrorist attack on the Kremlin building in Moscow, his agency – IMF – is disavowed and Hunt must use what little resources and personelle that are available to avoid a full scale nuclear war that threatens to wipe out humanity. His mission takes him from Russia to the world’s tallest building in Dubai to an Indian mogul’s mansion in Mumbai as he chases down the Swedish professor responsible for the mayhem.

True to the rest of the films in the franchise Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is sheer hold-on-to-the-edge-of-your-seat action as Cruise performs death defying stunts communicated by some incredible cinematography. We’ve already seen Cruise hang out of cars and fall off cliffs in previous impossible missions, but this time we get to see him scale skyscrapers, jump off buildings and drive luxury cars down 100ft drops. It’s action at its most exciting.

The plot relies less on the fancy gadgets and gimmicks of old and more on character relations, backstory and – a welcome addition to the series – humour. Simon Pegg’s (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) quirks and one-liners break the tension just enough for us not to take the film too seriously and just enjoy the chases, heists and visual spectacular that is to be had.

A special note must be made of Michael Giacchino’s music score, because what is Mission Impossible without the original score? He manages to seamlessly synthesize the well-known jingle into his own exciting composition that adds another dimension of brilliance to the film.

While I may not quite agree with one audience member who I overheard saying: “That was the best movie ever”, I do see where he is coming from. When you leave the cinema, the adrenaline rush will cause you to say anything. Tom Cruise, himself, believes that its his best movie. It’s not. Not when you consider his roles in Rain Man and Minority Report, but Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol does get your heart racing and your palms sweating and on a number of occasions I had to remind myself to breathe.

Oh, and you’ll be pleased to know that my Blackberry is working again.

Joining with the Giacchino score, this film will be heard at around 80 decibels.