I’ve not watched any episodes of the original Mission: Impossible television series so I can’t make any judgements about which of the four motion picture adaptations is the most faithful. All I can say is which I think is the best and Ghost Protocol isn’t it. My guess is that Brian De Palma’s 1996 debut of this Tom Cruise controlled and starring film series is the least faithful, but it remains by far the best and one of the last great Hollywood suspense thrillers of the twentieth century. The tightness and slender form of that first Mission: Impossible outing with it’s conceptual Dutch-angles and claustrophobically minimal use of outdoor locations was so well crafted that I’d trust it’s makers to build me a plane to fly in or a bridge to walk across.
What’s come since hasn’t been so impressive.
Back in 1996 only two gunshots were fired on screen and those two shots really mattered. They were crucial. The whole film seemed to be assembled around the desire to not reduce itself to simple firearm balletics in an era where Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez ruled the land with bullets and brutality. Every frame was meticulously devised and constructed like a more contemporary Wachowski or Snyder film. You really got the feeling that what was on screen was all that was shot; you could feel the visual architecture of the storyboarding process; you could feel the carefully timed walkthroughs to block the shots precisely before even an inch of celluloid was used; you could feel an auteur crafting something that had no room for what it didn’t need. It was lean, it wasn’t mean and it thrilled me to bits.
What’s come since has had some fat on it; it’s been a little mean spirited in places; and it’s most certainly been quite, quite average.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (or M:I4 or M:I-GP or Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol or however you’re meant to phrase it) is made by people who still appreciate what De Palma did sixteen years ago to vastly underrated success and it pleasantly echoes the feel of those distant achievements. There are signs here and there that the soul of this new one is harkening back to 1996 and that it could very well turn out to be something just as special. But it doesn’t. Ironically it feels sort of like a ghost.
A few reviews I read about Ghost Protocol when it first came out declared that it was stylish. I didn’t find it to be that exactly. Even when watching the trailers (which are meant to be comprised of “greatest hits” moments) I just couldn’t see where this slickness was that all the critics were raving about. Maybe it was to be found in the cinema in glorious IMAX 3D, but on my small screen 2D DVD copy what style probably jumped out at viewers in the theatre has been flattened out totally on home media. I wonder if the music was in IMAX 3D too because that’s flat as well, eventually becoming possibly the most redundantly placid elevator-music take on what a film score should contribute to a film that I’ve ever heard. It was there and it came out of my speakers, but I never “heard it”. Maybe I should invest in an expensive surround sound system.
Brad Bird’s first time helming a live action feature after a successful career directing animation is an impressive start, but it’s undeniably flawed. Not in any distracting way, mind you, as it’s a very confidently shot and choreographed film, so Bird certainly doesn’t lose points for his overall control of the project. What he does fail to do is something that his predecessor J. J. Abrams (who stays on as a producer) also failed to do and continues to fail to do – and that’s construct a coherent action set piece. The more subtle scenes of quiet suspense are outstanding and genuinely gripping, revealing itself to be one of Bird’s greatest strengths (will the projected corridor sequence and the duplicate hotel room scene become the things of legend?), but there were times when I just tuned out altogether as the film failed to communicate visually what was happening during the more bombastic moments.
There are three sequences that may have worked better and felt more impressive on an IMAX screen, but down here on lowly DVD they’re baffling. The tall building climbing scene (after M:I-2’s leap from a tall building and M:I-3’s, erm, leap from a tall building) is nice but for some reason I didn’t feel a nail-biting sense of danger even though the stunt was done “for real” (albeit with safety cables) on the side of the tallest building in the world. The filmmakers bravely chose not to cheat the sequence with blue screens and CGI mattes and yet there’s still something oddly fake about how it looks, especially with the lack of significant air movement and the subconscious assumption that, well, why wouldn’t you fake it if the result of doing it for real looks just as phoney? The sound design of the dust storm chase sequence made it sound like it was exciting but visually it lost me completely (although my failing eyesight didn’t help). The high tech multi-storey car park fight (a futuristic concept actually borrowed from a Thunderbirds episode) is brilliantly conceived but sadly wasted by missing expositional shots informing us where the characters fit in amongst the chaos or what the dangers are within the cinematic space.
One important thing that most definitely works and manages to hold the film together is the first Impossible Mission Force team in sixteen years that actually feels right. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton make, along with “point man” Cruise, a delightful foursome who bounce off each other’s strengths and weakness with avid glee and humour. They do so well in fact that Cruise’s roll in the film, whilst still very much the lead, seems humbly set back amidst his supporting players who he himself often plays support to. Is this a sign that Cruise is ready to hand the baton onto somebody else? Renner perhaps? Stranger things have happened.
It would be nice if Henry Czerny and Vanessa Redgrave (who both had all the best lines in the first one) could make a long overdue return in number four (would Emmanuelle Beart be out of the question too? After all, Claire Phelps only looked dead, right?), but I won’t be holding my breath.
My final thoughts on Ghost Protocol are that it’s too long and treads too many paths we’ve seen too many times before, mostly in other Mission: Impossible movies. It’s plot is the half-arsed stuff of an old Bond film that you never watch anymore and it’s bad guys are as insignificant and forgettable as the featured product placements will be in about five years time. It’s still miles better than the second one and only just ahead of the third, but the first and best for now remains solitary in a mythical league of it’s own.
A genuinely nice try, though.
3/5
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