Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol **** (2011, Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist) – Classic Movie Review 2738

Director Brad Bird’s intense and exciting Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) successfully revives the format and tops its three predecessors, propelled with some astounding and quite spectacular action sequences. It’s a cool movie that bids fair to being the best action film of its year.

Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames play Brandt, Benji and Luther Stickell, and are given plenty of space to do that thing they do, which they do well, putting skill and energy into it. But of course it’s Tom Cruise’s show as the desperately dynamic Ethan Hunt.

In Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec’s screenplay, Ethan Hunt and his new team race against time to track down Hendricks, a dangerous terrorist who has gained access to Russian nuclear launch codes and is planning a strike on the United States.

An attempt by the team to stop him ends with an explosion at the Kremlin and the IMF is shut down by the President, invoking Ghost Protocol, when it’s implicated in the bombing. Without backup, Ethan and his team go rogue to chase Hendricks to Dubai, and on to Mumbai, to clear their organization’s name.

Paula Patton plays Jane Carter, Michael Nyqvist is the lead male villain Hendricks, Anil Kapoor is Brij Nath, Léa Seydoux is Sabine Moreau and Josh Holloway is Hanaway.

The film was released in December 2011 to high critical acclaim and box office success. It cost $145million and took back $210million in the US, plus $485million worldwide = $695million. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, it was Cruise’s biggest commercial success to date.

Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames all returned for an inevitable fifth instalment, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in 2015. The film’s producers wanted director Brad Bird to return to helm Rogue Nation, but he declined so that he could make Tomorrowland (2015).

Michael Nyqvist, who starred in the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo films and John Wick, died on 27 June 2017 after a battle with lung cancer, aged 56.

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