I know, I know, I'm a week behind. It's been a very busy summer for me, if not for the box office. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is waylaid by a mysterious villain (Sean Harris) in London at the same time as the Impossible Mission Force is shut down by the CIA. Brandt (Jeremy Renner) is running interference at home while Ethan tracks a series of catastrophic events around the globe. He knows he can count on support from Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) but femme fatale Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) is a different bag altogether. Still, they must pool their resources if they ever hope to take down the Syndicate.
Ghost Protocol is still the best entry in the series so far but this one isn't terrible. The stunts are good; Tom Cruise is crazy for doing them himself but Lord love him for being in that good of shape at his age. Simon Pegg gets a much beefier role this time around, which is great since he is much more of the beating heart than Cruise, who is just slightly too removed and aloof. There's a wonderful set piece in the opera house in Vienna that was probably my stand-out moment, but it was not all wine and roses.
It felt as though the filmmakers tried a little too hard to make this into a Sherlock-Moriarty game. The central villain is meant to be a dark mirror to Ethan Hunt and Sean Harris does a helluva job. The strain came from everyone else's reactions in the film. Over and over, characters ask Ethan if the Syndicate could be all in his head. That kind of schtick only works if there is doubt in the audience's mind and it's explicitly shown to those of us watching that the Syndicate is very much a thing. Then it feels very much like the drama is forced. Like you just want to yell "He is not making it up! Can you get off your asses and lend him a hand?!" at the screen. Maybe that's just me.
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