Finally, Ethan grows an epiphany that it’s a team sport just in time before everyone literally becomes a “ghost”!
Paramount Pictures in association with Skydance Productions, TC Productions and Bad Robot Productions present…
A new team of agents saving their nation and ensuring the security of the world…
Based on Bruce Geller’s Mission: Impossible 1966 TV series, the fourth installment offers a monolith that has a grander scale embedded in the high stakes game of global supremacy! Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles) breaking away from animated films from Disney, Brad had brought back his “magic” to the big screen without to compromise entertainment for the grownups!
Producer Paula Wagner has left Tom to run his own Production Company, falling out as well from Paramount, Tom was still given a holding percentage from another studio MGM to save it from being closed down. Now making it on his own, he collaborated with J.J Abrams the former Director to help substantiate the needed financial backing for the film!
In his fourth straight inning Tom Cruise (Knight and Day) returns as IMF’s number one agent! Ethan Hunt was brought back from Prague to help infiltrate the Kremlin and recover a top-secret file. In spite of a worn down physique and going back to his long hair since M:I II, you can still see Tom do his own stunt work, always raising the bar to fulfill his adrenaline rush providing the audience with charisma and of course pure entertainment! From jumping on one prison floor to the next, sliding down on a wire is all in a day’s work for the actor. Climbing cliffs is one thing but scaling 2,723 feet of glass is another! The Burj Khalifa, currently the highest manmade peak in the world, the famous skyscraper was used for the scenes to exemplify feats the aging actor can do and you can’t keep a good man down!
Comedy sensation Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz) what can you say about this guy? From his success in the cult hit Shaun of the Dead, his playing with the big boys now! Reprising his role from the last film, he plays Benji Dunn an IMF Technician who recently passed the test is living the dream working with Hunt in the field! The Writer and Actor always brings the goods with him, even for supporting roles he can easily steal the show with his “spitballing” and discreet bantering with the team. The comedy was there but not too elaborate since it was mixed with the spy action theme and nostalgic drama!
Jeremy Renner (The Town) is all over the place nowadays, the next action star being primed by Hollywood to be the new face in the movie industry! Big projects are on their way including the highly anticipated culmination of superheroes The Avengers (well, he was part of this team longer), other films include the fantasy reimagination of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and continuing the fight for paranoia is the “Bourne Legacy”.
He’s come a long way and now he shares the spotlight with screen icons and greats! In the film he portrays the Chief Analyst of the current IMF Secretary while trying to escape “ghosts” from his past which made him reluctant to go back to field duty!
While Paula Patton (Deja Vu) as Jane Carter former mission leader who turned into subordinate (everyone yields). After a failed mission that involved Agent Trevor Hanaway, all gloves were off! Paula really has potential and can be part of bigger projects in the future! She can act without the need to be flamboyant, blends well with the cast members and never gave a dull moment in the film.
Lalo Scrifin’s original score was bespoked to capture each specific film’s tempo and premise! Even though each transition was great to listen to, I believe my preference would still be from Adam Clayton’s version in the first installment! Grammy Award Winner Michael Giachinno’s work did not bring out any fulfillment to what it’s trying to convey, it was drowning in the background especially for the opening theme which was nauseating!
Gaining cosmopolitan accolades from his work on the “Millennium Series”, Michael Nyqvist (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), is Swedish/Russian madman who wants to start a nuclear war to make peace! The way that his character was written was weak even without any solid background that could eventually help the audience relate to his specific objectives, not just merely out of retaliation. At least he was still in the background being chases around by Hunt’s IMF unlike the villain in “chaotic spy film” I reviewed previously!
Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum (Alias) collaboration as Writers for the film, their background was extensively shown and derived from their TV spy heroine “Sydney Bristow”! Stating the obvious that the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) is an “unofficial branch” of the CIA gives levity already in being treated as “non-existent individuals” in the so-called free world! As always, multiple locations of spy based films were already a given spanning from Moscow, Prague, Dubai, Bungalore and Vancouver, a partial coverage of these places were shot in IMAX cameras courtesy of Robert Elswit (Syriana) to capture the wide cityscape and at the same time the highest tower as well!
The gadgets being used in the film were fantastic, especially the Holographic Projection Screen that was used in the corridor but in order for it to be effective it must have only an individual looking in your supposedly reflection on the given surroundings, it flickers the image when multiple visuals are already being tracked by the camera at the back of the screen. It makes it believable coming from just a film having these technology to access very tightly secured locations even for the Kremlin! Another gadget was used to incinerate the cemented floor of the prison into rubble while someone was trying to escape! Lastly, the vehicle being used in the last scenes was a BMW i8 concept car which runs in a plug-in hybrid that allows the owner to recharge its battery that runs in lithium-ion which goes to say economists, businessmen and investors talk about nowadays as the next “super green fuel” and “the next oil” worth $11.5 Trillion in revenues!
Though there were some miscues like after an agent was shot his colleague followed the suspect who just left in a few seconds without any feedback to the team leader. How did the gadget used in the Kremlin corridor perfectly measured the length and width of the screen to be used? Superfluous moments like letting the Anatoly Sidorov, a Russian Intelligence Operative belittling Hunt’s attempt to escape even if it was already a dead end situation!
From NOC (Non-Official Cover) List of rogue agents stolen being sold to the highest bidder, to the deadly virus called Chimera and from the last film, the White Rabbit a “doomsday device” that would annihilate every single thing it touches and now, “nuclear Armageddon” is inevitable, impossible not with this team! All falls into place and will be in good hands as long Ethan and his IMF is on the job! On a side note, the repercussions of these destructive device dates back since its early development in October 1939! Today it’s about Syria, Iran and North Korea who’s giving the international community and world leaders much speculation for the development of nuclear weapons!
Garnering a huge success in profits amounting to $608 M in the box office receipts making it the unprecedented frontrunner from the film franchise! Great chemistry and casting, a superb thrill ride that keeps the spark burning! Mission: Impossible V is being planned out already to follow-through the film’s huge success and we don’t want it to fade away just like Ethan in the mist…
THE SUBLIMINAL HERALD 