Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

I remember seeing the first Tom Cruise version of Mission Impossible many years ago. I was turned off right away because his team members were killed off, and it was just Ethan Hunt. How can you have a Mission: Impossible without a team?

I came back for Ghost Protocol, which is number 4 in the franchise, and this time they get it right. Cruise is very good, and his teammates make him better, particularly, well, all of them: Jeremy Renner as William Brandt, Jane Carter as Paula Patton, and Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn. Together they make an awesome,if not mistaken-laden team. And therein lies the fun.

Hunt and the IMF are implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, which means Ethan Hunt and his new team have to go rogue to take down one really bad terrorist, Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist). "Ghost protocol" is the code word under which the IMF is disavowed.

Some of the stunts here are just unbelievable. Walking up a building. A car chase in a sandstorm. Stuff you've never seen before. And you wonder how they'll pull it off. Well, sometimes they don't, but that only endears us to these individuals who eventually become a team.

It's one exciting scene after another, with beautiful locations thrown in, and a few surprises along the way. Well done!

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