Mission Impossible 4: It's not deep or meaningful... but the stunts are pretty awesome

Verdict: The best one yet
Rating:
Brad Bird made his name with two brilliant animated films, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Mission Impossible 4 is his first live-action film, and it confirms that he  is a first-rate director.
There are three sequences here – a break from a Russian prison, a hazardous climb up the tallest building in the world in Dubai, and a climactic fight in an automated multi-storey car park in Mumbai – that rank among the best not just of the year, but of all time.

It's not deep or meaningful: But Tom Cruise's latest movie Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is packed with some awesome stunts

It’s these that make Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol superior to the other films in this series, and very much worth the price of admission. See it, if you can, on an Imax screen, where the stunts are breath-taking.

 

The story, regrettably, is a routine affair that never departs from formula. Yet another madman is intent on bringing about a world war. He’s called Kurt Hendricks, and is played uninterestingly by Michael Nykvist.
Apparently, this nutter’s belief is that only when the world has succumbed to nuclear annihilation will there be lasting peace. It’s a miracle this guy can get anyone to be his homicidal henchmen.

Action packed: Tom Cruise 's hazardous climb up the tallest building in Dubai is particularly breathtaking

Hendricks blows up the Kremlin and pins the blame on America - more specifically agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Simon Pegg and Paula Patton).
After the death by explosion of their boss (Tom Wilkinson), Hunt and co know they are on their own as rogue agents though, as usual in this series, they never seem to suffer from any shortage of money or hi-tech gadgetry.
Major faults remain from the first three pictures. Ethan Hunt must be the blandest, most boring action hero in modern cinema.
The shape of the screenplay and cheesy attempts at flippant wisecracks are familiar from too many Bond films, and it’s curious to see a modern film still peddling a view of Russian-American relations that dates from the Cold War.
No one’s going to pretend this film is deep or meaningful but, at its best, it really is pretty awesome.

Mission Impossible 4 goes on general release on Boxing Day.

 

Has Tom lost the plot?

Bryan Singer's wartime thriller suffers from the fact that we all know that the attempt by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise ) to assassinate Hitler (David Bamber) failed.
The only surprise is that so many people were in on the conspiracy and it came so close to success.
Unfortunately, Singer is uninterested in exploring the issues or characters. A fine, mostly British cast is wasted on roles which are too simplistic to warrant them turning up.

Under-powered: Tom Cruise, far left, is out of his depth in Valkyrie

Tom Wilkinson comes off best, as a canny officer trying to cover himself against every eventuality.
Cruise can be great when playing characters who are fiercely driven, such as the self-help guru in Magnolia or the aggressive sports agent Jerry Maguire. But here he is under-powered and out of his depth.

 

The script doesn't give him much to work with  -  we never understand Von Stauffenberg's aristocratic roots or his political beliefs  -  but Cruise is outclassed by a supporting cast that includes Carice van Houten (from the superior wartime thriller Black Book), Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh.
Symptomatic of Cruise's shortcomings is the fact he can't be bothered to change his American accent, which makes him seem like a Hollywood interloper.
Virtually everyone else sounds English, although a few of the baddies, Hitler included, go for 'Allo 'Allo! German.
I was never bored, and the period detail is lovingly observed; but there is a sense of an opportunity missed.
Does this picture tell us anything we didn't know, apart from that late on, when Hitler was losing his grip and the war, some of his former supporters turned against him? I fear not.
Verdict: Top Gun with jackboots