I became less interested in the Mission: Impossible films when Christopher McQuarrie turned them into brainy spy thrillers while Tom Cruise turned them into blatant stunt shows. With M:I 3, J.J. Abrams surrounded Cruise with a team, which Brad Bird continues in Ghost Protocol while also making the missions more and more impossible. This is why 3 & 4 are my two favorites, and the ones I’ve rewatched the most. Ghost Protocol is unapologetically silly, it’s part of the fun. A fun that doesn’t let up for 90-minutes. Much like how Protocol’s limitations can only be explained by looking at how M:I 3 does it all slightly better, the final big set-piece in Mumbai only pales because it comes right after the Dubai sequence. Here, Cruise demonstrates the benefit of showing vulnerability. Not just in the lesson on teamwork, but in the action as well. The most perfect moment of the film happens during the Dubai section. At the climactic moment coming back from the computer room, you’re set up for the usual Tom Cruise heroics and then a very human thing happens to Ethan.
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