If ever a film looked better than it sounds, it is this reboot of the Mission Impossible series.
Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt and his eccentric crew, on their own when their official unit is closed down, fight the good fight against a dotty villain (Michael Nyqvist) who wants to destroy the human race before it destroys itself. There are few lines that anything like match the most spectacular bits of action.
These take place in Moscow and Dubai and much the best of them has Ethan hanging, a very long way up, from the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest and possibly thinnest building. How it was shot with a heavy Imax camera, goodness only knows.
The band of brothers whom Ethan squires through a hundred scary moments includes Simon Pegg as the brainy geek with a pawky line in humour, Paula Patton as the foxy girl they barely seem to notice sexually, and Jeremy Renner as the handsome analyst who is clearly there not to disturb those with a fetish for Cruise.
Producer and star Cruise never likes to be second best and here performs his various feats with the kind of slightly weary aplomb that suggests he has seen it all before and may be becoming a little too old for it. It could be the last hurrah for him in this sort of caper.
There are, however, enough action sequences to stop us wondering either where the story has gone or why the characters are so two-dimensional. There are gadgets galore too and shoot-outs and car chases that murder probability.
Brad Bird, who made the animated The Incredibles, is the director, and he uses his actors almost as if they came from that film. Perhaps we shouldn't expect too much in the way of character in this kind of thing - but action always seems more fun when it's done by real people.
Opens on Boxing Day.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Cert: 12A
