Mission: Impossible –
Ghost Protocol
Directed By: Brad
Bird
Written By: Josh
Applebaum and Andre Nemec, based on the television series created by Bruce
Geller
Starring: Tom
Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Michael Nyqvist, Tom
Wilkinson, Anil Kapoor, Lea Seydoux, and Josh Holloway
Director of Photography: Robert Elswit, Editor: Paul Hirsch,
Production Designer: James D. Bissell, Original Music: Michael Giacchino
Rated: PG-13 for
those explosions that always seem to follow Tom Cruise around.
The
Mission: Impossible series, which
began as a television series but since 1996 has become an action vehicle for
Tom Cruise, has always felt like a Rosarch test for its directors. When you see
Mr. Cruise and giant explosions, what does it look like to you? For Brian De
Palma, it was a film that piled on twist after twist, revealing itself as
self-reflexive genre cinema. JJ Abrams put together kinetic action sequences
with a devilish villain played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, which felt at times
reminiscent of Lost. And the less
said about John Woo’s disaster, the better. Now comes Brad Bird, the director
of animated hits like Ratatouille,
starting his live-action debut.
Despite
his previous work only including actors whom he can tweak through digital manipulation
to every freckle (though one could argue most Hollywood flicks today do the
same), Mr. Bird’s thematic work seems apt for the Mission: Impossible series. The
Iron Giant played with the Cold War ideology often lying in the background
of the series (it’s always the Russians!). And The Incredibles showed Mr. Bird’s love of spectacle and action, the
more inventive the better. And thus, Mr. Bird takes and crafts Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol into
his own movie, one that wants to wow you from beginning to end.
