Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a good espionage thriller. It is still unable to escape the trappings of the genre and fails to reinvent it. It tries to gloss over this fact by including daredevil escapades which include some implausible set pieces. It is also a globetrotting adventure featuring states such as India, Dubai and Russia. The plot is stretched thin and you realize that the story could not keep pace with the globetrotting. The characters are all over the world so as to inject the story with life. It is obvious. It is not closed because had it been it would be a drag for the audience. The moments of quietude in the film fail to resonate and it is clear that the characters are caricatures much like the organization they work for: the IMF (Impossible Mission forces). This film is a justification for American intervention in other states and their security concerns. It seems America must never fear since they have the IMF to defend their borders. There are good elements in the film such as the pacing and the concept of the ghost protocol although you realize that it is nothing new. How the characters come together is also quite interesting. The technology on display is certain to excite some audience members as well as the attempts at humour which are predictable.
The film is about the IMF being implicated in an attack on the Kremlin. The President immediately shuts it down for there are fears that this will ignite a nuclear war with Russia. The plan known as Ghost protocol is put into effect which means that only a special team of four, headed by special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), can restore the good name of the IMF by finding the true culprit who was responsible for the Kremlin bombing and who is prepared to start a global nuclear war between the US and Russia.
What’s good about this film?
The film has a lot of good things going for it despite its trappings. I liked the pacing of the film and the action sequences particularly the fights. It is escapist fiction so one can tolerate the implausibility of some of these set pieces such as Tom Cruise hanging outside the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. It was also good to see how the characters came to form some fellowship which highlights that there might be some life in the franchise following this one. You are aware of this by the end when the individual team members go their separate ways. The idea that wars between nations are being fought underneath instead of on the surface where every attack is played down as a malfunction etc is realistic to an extent that information is being transmitted to people. The idea of ghost protocol was pretty well developed as it is a safe measure for the IMF when things get awry. It was also a good concept since it dealt with the issue of there being no one left to make a stand apart from a few or that the life of an entity is balancing on a thin thread. These individual members are supposed to represent hope for espionage carried out by the United States. The jokes are supposed to make audiences chirpy throughout as well as the technology on display. The film seems like a materialist/bourgeois fantasy at times or as justification for their right to rule. It seems pathetic at times especially when a Indian business mogul is featured. As pathetic as it looks sometimes this will appeal to the members of the bourgeois class, their lackeys and parasites. The film also does a good job as a travelogue by featuring two members of the BRICS: India and Russia as well as Dubai of the UAE in the Middle East.
All that was discussed previously is not unique for it has been done before in many espionage thrillers and so it is no wonder that the production team try and rely on the set pieces to be so distinctive and this would explain their use of environments of foreign countries for it seems more grandiose and less intimate than other thrillers in this genre.
There is some reference here to Dr. Strangelove Or: How I learned to stop worrying and Love the Bomb? Code name: cobalt. This reminded me of the Cobalt thorium G in Dr. Strangelove.... You can’t get more superficial than that. It seems that the character Strangelove can now walk and run.
What’s bad about this film?
This film is hardly special and will be forgotten in a couple of months. It is hardly resonant particularly in the quiet moments. The attempt to generate emotion was lost here since the production team assume that the audience cares about the characters. There will be members of the audience that will wince when some actors start to look weepy because it does not seem essential. The relationship between Hunt and his wife for instance was pretty hollow and he is supposed to be some form of a dark knight when he walks off shrouded by the mist. If you did not watch the previous mission impossible installment you will wonder what all the fuss was about especially with the character William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Instead of having his own story he has to be tied into the story of Ethan Hunt. Why is that since what you are trying to emphasize is that the members of the team have different backgrounds?
The set pieces in the film are clearly contrived and too coincidental to seem organic. A straightforward plan is always disrupted because Tom Cruise has to show that he can do his own stunts. This occurs in the scenes at the Burj Khalifa and when he is outside a hospital window. It seems like a desperate ploy to manipulate the audience and their sensibilities. Who is going to believe the implausibility of some of the fight scenes, particularly the final one in a high tech parking lot?
The IMF seems like a dummy corporation for it to be subject to a ghost protocol. It seems as if the organization is limited to one individual: Ethan Hunt. What does this say about the institution if one mishap can send it crashing down? One individual slips up so how is it connected and how was it disabled for this particular measure to be taken. The acronym is also misleading since its mandate as an organization is not explained.
The thematic elements in the film do not stand out from most espionage thrillers. It seems to rely on the scale of the set pieces to be distinct. As a result the story will be forgotten and the audience will only come to expect good stunt work when they watch this film. All the film boils down to is tracking the main suspect; a suspect who is highly intelligent and capable of making an escape. The villain seems to work only with his crony and there is no account of him as an individual or what he thinks. He is caricaturized. In fact most of the characters are caricatures which is why humour is essential so as not to lose the interest of the audience. The audience will never care for them; that I can guarantee. A t least the Bourne series made you care about Jason Bourne however this series is all about stunts.
The technology on display seems to cater to the crass bourgeois/materialist crowd and is too flashy to seem intrinsic to the schematics of the plot. You have a nice car with touch screen here, you have some fancy computers (apple) and you have some very handy gloves. People will no doubt say wow. I am justified in my statements based on the centres where the action takes place. In Dubai it takes place in the tallest building in the world where rooms are an average $ 4000 a night. In India the action takes place at state of the art facilities and in the home of a pathetic business mogul. It seems more like a bourgeois fantasy rather than a film that has some necessary statements about espionage. The actors speak foreign languages and that seems to be enough. The globetrotting experience also stretches the story too thin since it is never really explained why it is necessary for the characters to visit all these lovely locales. A business man in India owns this so lets go to India. An Arms dealer in Dubai has access to things lets go and check him. How is it that they are asked to invade the Kremlin? It would have been more accurate to establish something about the tension between the two nations: the US and Russia as opposed to having some mad scientist try and blow up the world for no apparent reason. What is fuelling the conflict? I suppose all espionage thrillers must have this globetrotting experience to be validated? There is no proper methodological construct here and this is why I am convinced that this film is a bourgeois fantasy. Maybe we can get Cruise to do some stunts in Jamaica.
The nature of espionage is not explored at all. It seems to be taken for granted and I was thrown off from the beginning of the film. Espionage is more intricate than how it is presented here in such a superficial manner. If you work for the IMF it seems as if you work for the Mafia. What is the mandate of the organization which would make it seem credible in tackling the notion of espionage and subversion? Why do they see espionage as a credible in world affairs at the moment? As the notion of espionage is not developed the film rings hollow.
Just give Tom Cruise the wire and let’s call it a day.
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