Brad Bird's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL

Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

What a big, fun, goofy, and exciting film this is!

This is the first film I watched via the streaming Vudu service. I used my free Vudu signup credit to access the streaming 1080p version — and some of the visuals are stunning. The initial fly-over of Budapest, for example, is almost 3D in its clarity. The Dubai scenes, of course, are nothing short of spectacular.

The film focuses on a small team of rogue agents led by Tom Cruise’s character and we get a terrific vicarious tour of different places around the world as a side benefit.

The story is your basic clock-ticks-down-as-world-teeters-on-edge-of-doom scenario. No matter. You have to suspend belief entirely to buy the stunts and computer tricks on display here but I’m more than OK with that. Director Bird keeps a light touch throughout and doesn’t let rationality get in the way of a good time.

I laughed out loud at the end combat between Cruise and the bad guy in the vertical parking garage. It contained elements of the factory scene in Minority Report, the kitchen chase scene in Ratatouille, and the door warehouse scene in Monsters Inc., chiefly by the nature of how action just keeps driving along with different twists and turns along the way.

That Brad Bird directed this so tightly and so well is indicative of what makes a good cartoon and a good “live action” film — a good story told at a breakneck speed with lots of action and interesting characters.

I hear the next Bond film may be a bit lighter in tone than the last. Perhaps the Bond series is paying attention to the success of films like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL?

Review copyright (c) 2012 by Dennis D. McDonald