The one review I saw of this said it was the best Mission Impossible movie so far. I don't know if I agree with that but it was pretty enjoyable. The keynote of these movies is, of course, the action. The story really doesn't matter much, except as a device to get them from one exotic locale to another. So it you're expecting a coherent story, you're in the wrong bay of the multiplex. On the other hand, if you enjoy seeing Tom Cruise being belted around (who doesn't?), hanging off impossibly tall buildings, driving fast cars faster than physics will allow, then you're in the right place.

The other hallmark of these movies is gear. This movie has plenty. If you've seen the trailers than you know the basic plot. Tom, I mean Ethan, and the IMF crew have been set up. A rather elaborate set up that involved getting the team inside the Kremlin so the bad guys could blow a hole in the side of it and blame it on the IMF. After this, they are operating on Ghost Protocol, which apparently means they have to concoct wild schemes without the help of headquarters. Isn't this the plot of every IM movie? Being without help means, apparently, having access to a railroad car, parked in Moscow, full of guns, electronic equipment, clothes, guns, computers, and guns.

We've been seeing the actors from the last Star Trek movie a lot recently. Before the film we saw a trailer for the Blu Ray edition of Colombian with Zoe Saldana (Uhura) and an upcoming movie called This Means War with Chris Pine (Kirk). This Means War looks absolutely atrocious. And Simon Pegg (Scotty) is in Ghost Protocol. Pegg is also one of the voices in The Adventures of Tintin, which we're going to see this week. ( )

Fast-paced, twists & turns, some humor.
Suffers from the defects of the genre, mostly the totally unrealistic deadlines and ops activities completed in hours that would realistically take weeks or months, but also the physical feats that would require "mutant" powers and bones of adamantium.
But hey, it was fun! ( )

Four secret agents hunt down a would-be nuclear terrorist.

There's some truly great action. And some not-so-great action. It's often not entirely clear why everything is happening, but that's probably just as well. I expect that if we had a chance to think about the plot, it would make about as much sense as the climax: a lengthy, brutal fist fight between an old man and a guy that can take out a room full of badasses without breaking a sweat.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: F
Dialog: D
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.1/4 ( )