“Mission Impossible; Ghost Protocol” or fun, fun for the fourth time.

Well that was fun.  I liked this, even though it is a fourth installment.  Tom Cruise knows how to deliver on the non-stop action, and Brad Bird’s signature is there to see in the looks of all the action sequences.

As with past MI movies the action sequences have to deliver bigger more adrenaline filled thrills.  This time though instead of using faster cars, trains or automobiles the action is more about individual, physical challenges.  Because of this there are no big impossible action sequences where Tom is hanging from the wing of a jet, or some other improbable location.  This is refreshing; instead they rely on added elements like the big storm in the middle that adds excitement to what would normally be just a car chase.  In this way, thinking outside the box MI4 delivers. 

The locations are exotic and the actors, solid. Though both Michael Nyquist and Anil Kapoor, come off a little clichéd as the Swedish dissident and the Indian playboy respectively.  It is a little as though the casting director was told to find the most visible actor from Sweden and India and automatically cast them.  These are small caveats though, for the most part the story moves along well and the action is the star.  If the ending is a little cheesy, well, Tom has earned his cheese, and it is all in the name of wrapping up a secondary story line, so it plays.

All in all I say yes to Ghost Protocol and to all of those MI movies to come.  As long as they can keep the action solid and the stunts fresh they will have an audience.