MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4: GHOST PROTOCOL

THE JUDGE SAYS: This film and its’ success will have you lose hope in society.

This is the most convoluted, nauseating portrayal of an action movie that has EVER been made. The only excuse that I can come up with is that that producers figured out a way to launder the $145 million it took to make this drivel. Unbeknownst to me, this movie actually made a profit, well, more than a profit. This movie made $637,742,196 worldwide! That is even before DVD sales. After having seen this movie, I can only imagine these numbers are made up. That is the only hope I have for us as a species.  Now, please don’t take my animosity as mere Cruise bashing, because, believe it or not, I am big fan of some of his stuff. The Last Samurai was thoroughly badass. MI: 3 was even pretty good. All negative comments are derived solely from the inadequacies’ of this film, and this film alone. It just so happens the flaws in this film are so atrocious, I may have to destroy the Red Box DVD to remove it from circulation, saving the next would-be viewer.

Instead of breaking down every plot flaw, don’t worry, I’ll go through some of them, let’s go over some of the staples of this franchise. Here is the formula. First, come up with several new gadgets. The term “new” can be used loosely, just as is was in this film when they had a 5 minute chase scene to showcase a fabulous new technology, GPS! Yes, they took 5 minutes to show us Ethan Hunt can use GPS. Second, add new intuitive ways to trick people. The big head scratcher in this one was when the bad guy wore a mask. Get out’ta town. No shit. That was the bad guy all along. You got me good. And last but not least, you have to be saving the world from… you guessed it folks, a nuclear attack. You have to give it to them on this one, at least they didn’t try to be clever about it. I definitely lost respect for James Bond in his last movie when the big threat was a 3^rd world country privatizing their water rights. Ewwww, scary! So there you go, lets see what other nonsense they put together in their forth installment of the franchise.

What you will find nauseating about this film is what Bush haters would label as “Mission Creep.” They never clearly define the imperatives of each of their missions, nor the implications of their failures. This leads to a constantly evolving set of goals. Then they make it sound as if the world is going to end if they don’t succeed every step along the way. Well, they fail, and they fail often. And every time they fail they always follow it up with, “well that doesn’t really matter because we can do this…” that happens 4 to 7 times depending on when you tune out on the film. First, they fail at securing the launch codes. Second, they fail at stealing the launching device. Third, after the good guys physically hand over the codes to the Bad Guy, they subsequently fail at tracking the Bad Guy.

I apologize, I have to stop here for a minute. The idea at this point was to intercept the codes at an exchange in which they knew two separate sets of bad guys were going to be. All Ethan Hunt and friends have to do at this point is shoot these duechebags in the head and bam, game over, party time. But no, shooting these international terrorists who are planning to launch nuclear weapons on the U.S.A. never even came up as an option. WTF. NO. Shoot them. Movie over. So instead of shooting these M’n F’ers they decide to just let them go about their business and follow them. It takes a minute to get used to this new horrible idea but hey, maybe they are going to show us the interworking’s of a terrorist network and it will be cool. Nope. They are serious about just trailing these people. Okay, I buy it, proceed.

Wait, oh shit, they’re not going to trail them now? What are they doing? Instead of using what limited man power they have on surveillance they decide to impersonate both the dealers and the buyers in an elaborate scheme for  NO REASON WHATSOEVER. There is absolutely no benefit to them impersonating the bad guys as apposed to just watching it go down. They are a four person team. Impersonating these bad guys leaves them ZERO teammate’s  to track them down after the exchange. Two of the bad guys literally just walk out the door with no one following them. Cruise’s team sucks at their job so they get caught and start a fight. Fortunately a hot chick fight ensues. Yay, the good girl wins! Unfortunately she is too emotionally traumatized to even think about restraining the badass spy she just captured. She leaves it up to the clumsy novice computer geek agent to keep the “still not in restraints hot badass spy chick” at bay while she goes in the other room to “collect her thoughts.” What-do-you-know the badass spy gets loose leading to another fight in which the spy is killed with a roundhouse kick to the abdomen sending her out the 160^th floor window of some hotel in Dubai. This isn't all that upsetting because it is my belief they should have just killed the bitch in the first place, but as far as the movie is concerned, Team Hunt screwed up. So for all their trouble, in the end, all they did was give the codes to the Bad Guy and let him get away.

After these three abysmal failures you think there is no hope, but wait. Turns out you need a satellite to transmit the signal for the launch. Being as this was never brought up before you just kind of assumed any cell tower would do and that part was arbitrary. But no, now we can add another 30 minutes of runnong around aimlessly… I have to warn you, this next sequence is exhausting, but I promise you I consolidated it as much as humanly possible. Fourth failure, they fail to get new satellite codes in time to block the satellite. Mind you, without any reasonable explanation, this is the only satellite capable of transmitting this signal. All hope is lost again. But wait. Now they can just go to the control center for the satellite and turn it back on. Fail again, the bad guys broke the control center. Wait we can fix it. Fail, bad guys turned off the power. Wait, we can turn the power back on. Wait, if we fix it, and turn the power back on, we still need the launch device. Fail, the missile already launched. Wait, we can cancel it while its in the air. Make it stop, please. After being led to believe there is no hope several times throughout the movie you are hoping we at least get to see a big ass explosion at the end. Fail, you have to watch a ridiculous gymnast parkour fight in a futuristic 20-story parking garage.

After both of them land several devastating blows, all of which certainly strong enough to kill a horse, they find themselves hobbled, ten stories up.  With what we assume is only a few seconds left before the missile detonates and Jerry McGuire fails, the Bad Guy realizes that by jettisoning the briefcase  ten stories down to the ground floor there is no way physically possible Jerry can  get to it in time to press the stop button.

PAUSE. Now stop. So as the Bad Guy realizes he can win, what do you think he would do at this moment? A, and by the way, yes the answer should be A, he should toss the briefcase down the ten flights and say something clever like, “I want to lick your midget toes Tom Cruise”, while reveling in his victory. Or go with unlikely yet still plausible answer B, the Bad Guy has a change of heart and hands over the briefcase apologetically saying, “ I can’t go through with this, save the world Tom Cruise.” Though both of those choices are derived from some well worn action narratives, they at least make sense and fit. But no, the answer is C, Bad Guy jumps WITH the suitcase ten stories to his death. Yep. Dude just straight up commits suicide. He didn’t even yell something awesome like JIHAD JIHAD! Dude just thought the briefcase needed some company on its 100 foot flight. And before you start thinking he was trying to pull off some ninja flying shit, no, he wasn’t. He definitely just decided to stop fighting and kill himself leaving just enough time for Tommy Boy to come up with an unrealistically inventive new way to get to the briefcase in time to save the day.

$145,000,000 folks. That’s how much money was approved for this idea. I am racking my brain, but I don’t know what is worse, the $145,000,000 spent on the film, or the $637,000,000 it made at the box office. Support independent films ladies and gentlemen. At least if they suck you don’t have the spite of knowing they made a fortune off of it. Thank you for reading, and until next time, GB².