Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol

Description

Product Description No plan. No backup. No choice. Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his elite team (Jeremy Renner, The Avengers and Simon Pegg, Star Trek) go underground after a bombing of the Kremlin implicates the IMF as international terrorists. While trying to clear the agency's name, the team uncovers a plot to start a nuclear war. Now, to save the world, they must use every high-tech trick in the book. The mission has never been more real, more dangerous, or more impossible. desertcart.com The second half of the first decade of the 21st century has been kind of tough for Tom Cruise. That's tough in a way over and above the hardship of living the legacy of one of history's top movie stars--a job more demanding than any mere mortal could imagine. But after two fruitful collaborations with Steven Spielberg (Minority Report and War of the Worlds), his stature took a beating from the one-two hits of those wacky PR gaffes and that string of relative box-office disappointments (Lions for Lambs, Valkyrie, Knight and Day), which seemed to start with the third installment of his Mission: Impossible franchise in 2006. It's hard to say with a straight face that taking in only $398 million worldwide is a disappointment, but it was a low for the series, which some later saw as a prelude to his potentially dimming stardom. But on the cusp of turning 50, it looks like Tom Cruise has put the licking behind him and entered a new phase of self-conception with an upcoming array of roles, starting with a more maturely controlled version of superspy Ethan Hunt in the sleek and supercharged Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. The things Cruise has done right in M: I part four include toning down his youthful, arrogant preening and letting his castmates share more of the spotlight (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, and Simon Pegg all have some terrifically shiny moments). He also lets the unique creative vision of director Brad Bird shine through in a first live-action outing for the acclaimed helmer of Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Still looking much younger than his years (that hair! those pecs! those abs!), Cruise is playing more age-appropriately, letting a little wisdom and grace seep into his charisma so the wattage of his mere presence smolders a little deeper. It's a nice nod to a graying generation that says you can get older and still be cool. All that is not to say he doesn't play up his action-star chops to the max. In a mostly inconsequential narrative arc that has something to do with purloined nuclear launch codes, an important metal briefcase, satellite uplinks, and global annihilation that leaps from Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai, Cruise is as dangerously nimble as he has ever been. He dangles one-handed from the tallest building in the world, bounds off ledges, springs out of speeding vehicles, tumbles and careens up and down the levels of an automated parking garage, and generally sprints and jumps his way across the movie with only a scratch or bruise to show for it. Also on the outlandish upside is a happily stereotypical villain straight out of Connery-era Bond and as many bleeding-edge gadgets as the art department techno-geeks could dream up. A running gag is that many of these electronic fantasy tools fail at just the wrong moment, which is part of a larger wink acknowledging how utterly preposterous yet ingeniously conceived this behemoth of a movie really is. The gadgetry is not limited just to the miraculous props. Ghost Protocol employs CGI fakery of the highest order from the sub-industry of effects contractors that ratchet up the standard of computing power and software design, one-upping each successive action-adventure extravaganza. The loving detail that goes into blowing up the Kremlin or rendering a photo-realistic sandstorm erupting across the enhanced skyline of an Oz-like desert city is nothing short of miraculous. What's more astonishing is that Tom Cruise closes the deal with a selling power that's as new and improved as the laminates on his multi-million-dollar teeth. --Ted Fry Review: The best pure action-adventure in a REALLY long time. - Tom Cruise is a great movie star. There. I said it. After some thirty years in this business and about twenty-five of those years spent as a bona-fide star, he can still make it work. No matter what you may think of him personally, there is an effortless charm that he brings to almost all of his films. Lately, though, it's been a bit of a slog. With films like KNIGHT AND DAY, VALKYRIE and LIONS FOR LAMBS (Remember that film? Yeah, me neither), he hasn't been packing them in like he used to. Even M-I:3 was considered something of a failure, despite doing over $350 million worldwide. But that's Hollywood for ya: You jump on Oprah's couch and you claim that psychology is a scam, and people look at you differently, even when you're acting. I've loved Cruise's work for decades (except when he's in REALLY lousy films, like COCKTAIL or THE FIRM or VANILLA SKY), and I've admired him when he took risks (like MAGNOLIA and COLLATERAL, even if I don't care for those films). When I heard that he had gotten Brad Bird, the director of Pixar classics THE INCREDIBLES and RATATOUILLE and my favorite hand-drawn English animated film of all time, THE IRON GIANT, I was VERY excited. This is obviously someone who knows extremely creative storytelling, and really knows how to construct a scene. But it was also his first live-action film. But with Simon Pegg returning, and new additions like Jeremy Renner, Tom Wilkinson, and Josh Holloway (despite the latter two had nothing more than cameos, really), and with working again with J.J. Abrams who helped revitalize the series with the third film, I still had high hopes. Then the reviews started pouring in. WOW. People were LOVING this film. And by all accounts, they were exactly right to. The film is ear-to-ear grinning and wall-to-wall action. Not the pensive De Palma action of the first film, and not John Woo M:I-2 mega-ultra gunplay action, and not uncomfortably realistic J.J. Abrams action; but like a snowball rolling down a hill, once it starts, it just gets bigger and bigger and then you find yourself at the bottom of that hill and you await the bliss of the impact. Bird lays the hyper-dynamic (and dare I say cartoonish) set pieces piled one on top of another like the most delicious action-adventure cake you've tasted in years. The haters can keep hating on Cruise, but he really makes this film pop just as much as Bird does. His breezy wit and afore-mentioned effortless charm flow during some of the film, but he gets down to business in a big way. One complaint I keep seeing of this film is how unrealistic it is. Guess what? IT'S MISSION &#*%^@& IMPOSSIBLE!! If it were MISSION: POSSIBLE, then I could accept that criticism. This is not HILL STREET BLUES; It's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. It's not supposed to be realistic at all times. This is by far the best of the M:I series, and I hope that Bird and Cruise team up again soon, because that would be another mission I would absolutely choose to accept. Review: Mission Impossible is still impossibly awesome :D - The Mission Impossible series is undoubtedly one of my favorite movie series because, unlike a lot of other movie series out there, they don't make hasty sequels just to rack in some more cash from devote fans (yes, I'm thinking of Transformers right now... much as I hate to say it because I loved the first movie). Ghost Protocol is actually my favorite movie of the series, a spot which previously belonged to MI3 after it belonged to MI2... This is another oddity as even in many series where the sequels aren't horrible, they still can't beat the first one (ex. Pirates of the Caribbean). Anyways, on to the movie itself. Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner both gave amazing performances. I love how the script manages to work in laugh-out-loud moments while still maintaining its serious nature and action that keeps you at the edge of your seat. While I know that the feats performed are impossible, they managed to lend it an amount of plausibility as things never turn out as planned. Their technology works only about half the time, plans have to be changed and the new ones inevitably lead to new pitfalls, the team works together but still have reservations about one another.... All in all, I thought it was amazing. The revelation about Jeremy Renner's character was particularly momentous, as his role was primarily comedic up to that point. The music that was used in the movie enhanced the moments of tension and helped to create the atmosphere of the various foreign locales. The cinematography was beautiful, and I can't get over the fact that Tom Cruise was actually hanging on the outside of Burj Khalifa (something I learned from the special features on my blu ray disk :P). My only complaint would be that Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) did not play a larger role in the film. However, as I loved the new cast in this movie, that is not a real disappointment.