When the entire IMF is disavowed after a terrorist attack on the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt and his team must go rogue to stop the real culprit.
ACTION
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Mission Impossible:
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Ghost Protocol was my initial introduction to the Mission Impossible franchise, so it raised the bar pretty high for me when it came to the rest of the films. Some franchises don't find their groove until later. Hell, it took Fast & Furious five tries before they got a really good one. With Mission Impossible, it took four. This film is a wildly entertaining action thriller that finally brings out the best potential this franchise has to offer. With a killer ensemble, a simple premise, and genuinely high stakes, Ghost Protocol is the film that reinvigorated the franchise and set the standard for the films that followed.
When the Kremlin is destroyed and the IMF framed for it, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) must go rogue with a team he barely knows in order to find the real culprit before he launches a nuclear attack on the United States. What follows is a smartly written flick with entertaining characters that builds on what came before, but manages to create a film that stands alone. I saw this one years ago with zero prior knowledge of the franchise, and I still enjoyed it. That's very hard to do with a fourth entry, but Brad Bird succeeded. This entry also marked the beginning of Tom Cruise's crazy stunts, in which he physically climbed the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. Regardless of what you think about Cruise, you have to admit that it takes serious guts to do your own stunts, let alone climb the tallest building in the world for real. He followed this by hanging onto an airplane during takeoff for Rogue Nation, and I think he's planning a HALO jump for Fallout. Ghost Protocol was just what this franchise needed to stay relevant and exciting in an age where the traditional action movie is overshadowed by disaster porn and superheroes. |