If Pixar's Brad Bird seemed like something of an odd choice to helm the fourth installment in the ever expanding Mission: Impossible franchise, skeptics need only look at the first ten minutes of what is undeniably the best installment in the series to see why he was the perfect pick. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol has nothing much in the way of plot (it's another "Russians are bad guys" blockbuster), nor are its characters - including Tom Cruise's bland hero Ethan Hunt - particular interesting; where the movie thrives, however, is in its beautiful and innovative set-pieces, which are technically brilliant and never anything other than breathtaking. So Ghost Protocol is pretty much an unabashed triumph, a film that injected a series on the brink of feeling unnecessary with a well-needed sense of fun. And that's where the beauty lies; Ethan Hunt's fourth outing is genuinely fun in a way that so many action movies aren't these days. That's not to say that Mission: Impossible 4 is entirely fluffy - just that it's content to throw us from one insane set-piece to another, bridging the gaps with witty dialogue exchanges that don't spoil the entertainment factor. Tom Cruise, 50 years old here, even does his own stunts (one of which has him climbing the world's tallest building in Dubai and is genuinely nerve-racking), which adds a great layer of authenticity.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
