Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Tom Cruise might as well be animated in Incredibles director Brad Bird's undeniably thrilling, stunt-heavy, but essentially empty addition to the Mission: Impossible franchise. Cruise again plays the brooding Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt. When the Kremlin is bombed, IMF is blamed, causing the American government to "disavow" the entire agency. Hunt is left working with a team of IT wizard Benji (a typically droll Simon Pegg), revenge-obsessed Jane (Paula Patton), and Brandt (Jeremy Renner), an analyst with a dark secret. They have to stop Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a resourceful madman set on causing nuclear war between the US and Russia. The TV version of IMF would often hit a critical snag, forcing them to improvise. The movie version is all snags. Nothing ever goes smoothly, and they are constantly being double-crossed with disastrous results. Luckily, they're slightly more indestructible than the villains. It's clear that the buff Hunt can withstand any kind of punishment, but why is the doughy-looking Hendricks nearly his physical equal in their climactic battle in a high-tech parking garage? Jaw-dropping scenes like that and the sequence where Hunt climbs the side of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai may make qualms about plot and character development seem like nitpicking, but the lack of a genuine sense of peril and/or a credible emotional hook keep this fun popcorn flick from being an action classic.