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Brad Bird all but confirmed as "Mission: Impossible IV" director

I saw this last night on blu-ray; I'd missed it in the cinema (the first one I didn't see on the big screen sadly) and this was my first rental in some time. Loved it. The scene in Dubai especially was brilliant, as was the climactic fight in the car factory. Great plot twists, clever use of technology (it served the plot, rather than vice-versa) and some nice humour. Great support from Renner and Pegg in particular and the cast in general. Oh and a couple of welcome cameos at the end, both of which came as a total surprise to me.

I've always thought that the series got progressively better - II was better than MI and III was better still. Not sure if I prefer this movie to III or not. Great and all as my new 46" widescreen HD tv is, it's not quite as good as the cinema, which is probably why I'm still tending towards III (plus III had a better villain). But I'll be sure to catch V in the cinema!
 
Which was also one of the best fight scenes I've seen in recent memory. I always like it when movies take a standard movie conceit (hero vs. villain) and make it look original.
 
Aldo said:
Which was also one of the best fight scenes I've seen in recent memory. I always like it when movies take a standard movie conceit (hero vs. villain) and make it look original.
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Indeed. If the carpark fight had been in any other movie, it would have been the scene getting all the attention. As it is though, it's in the same movie as the Dubai sequence which is also just phenomenal. This movie was just great, with two of the best action set-pieces I've seen in any action movie.
 
IV is probably my second favourite of the series after the first one, I really disliked the second and whilst the third one was ok it only felt like Mission Impossible during the Vatican bits.

My only quibble would be that I felt it peaked in the middle with the Dubai bits, I wasn't that impressed with the car park fight if I'm honest, plus the villain could have had a bit more screen presense.
 
I saw Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol in IMAX. I'd kept hearing from people how great the movie was, and how the people who saw it in IMAX were just gushing about it. I can happily say they were absolutely right - it was a thrilling experience.

About the only negative thing I have to say about the film is that I was disappointed in how they chose to handle Paula Patton's character. Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, hell even Josh Holloway - all got to do cool things and have their unique and yet ultimately satisfying skills and abilities. Hers? She just had to sit there and be pretty and try to seduce the bad guy.

It would have been far more entertaining and interesting if the plan had actually been to have her do precisely that - seduce the bad guy, only to find out moments before going in that the guy she's supposed to seduce isn't heterosexual at all.

But whatever. It's a smart, intense and ultimately satisfying film that I enjoyed very much.
 
I saw Patton's character rather differently. She was a very tough and effective fighter from the opening sequence onward, but when she was called upon to play the seductress, it was the one thing she didn't do well. I saw her as emblematic of the difference between the style of the Ethan Hunt movies and the style of the genuine Mission: Impossible that this film embraced for the first time. Her character was a product of the blockbuster-action world of the movies, and now she was dropped into the TV series' approach of handling things by stealth and deception rather than punching and shooting, and she had a hard time adapting.
 
Jane Carter (had to look up the name on imdb) did have an arc about going after the woman who killed her partner and a resulting fight scene, but I don't think Patton had the same presence as the other mains. It didn't help that her arc ended in Dubai so she didn't have as much of a story to tell later on compared to the others.

She wasn't a bad character though. Just not as strong a one.

EDIT: Just realised I couldn't remember any of the characters names other than Hunt, even Pegg's. Had to look up theirs as well.
 
Is thre a reason they created a new character for Paula Pound to play rather then bring Maggie Q back?

I don't think Pound's character did anything that Maggie couldn't have done. Plus it would have added even more continuity between this film and the third (a first, in this series if I'm not mistaken).
 
Maggie Q's starring role on Nikita is most likely what precluded her return.

Anyway, it's interesting that Jane has the same last name as the originator of the IMF team role she's filling, Cinnamon Carter. I wonder if she could be Cinnamon's daughter, but that would mean that Cinnamon ended up with an African-American husband (or whatever) rather than with Rollin Hand as one would've expected.
 
Christopher said:
Maggie Q's starring role on Nikita is most likely what precluded her return.
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This was my assumption as well. It could also be the case that the producers wanted a different actress and/or female lead in the film. Beyond Michelle Monaghan, has any female character appeared in more than one Mission: Impossible film? Or, it could be that some genius somewhere was worried that if Maggie Q came back, the unwashed masses would mistake her for her Nikita character in the film. Whaddyagonnado? :shrug:

Anyway, it's interesting that Jane has the same last name as the originator of the IMF team role she's filling, Cinnamon Carter. I wonder if she could be Cinnamon's daughter, but that would mean that Cinnamon ended up with an African-American husband (or whatever) rather than with Rollin Hand as one would've expected.
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Not necessarily. She could just as easily have been adopted. Or.... be from a different Carter family.
 
Starkers said:
IV is probably my second favourite of the series after the first one, I really disliked the second and whilst the third one was ok it only felt like Mission Impossible during the Vatican bits.
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I just watched this last night on Blu-Ray as well, and I agree with this statement. I have the first M:I on HD-DVD, and it's my favorite. It was a true spy movie through and through, and the action was all supporting the plot. Ethan had a team as well (two, actually), which is kind of the point of IMF.

The 2nd movie and the 3rd movie were the Ethan Hunt show, which took me out of it. This one showed that he needed his team, and couldn't do it all on his own.

If they ever do another sequel, though, I say they promote the Ethan Hunt character to more of a Team Leader role, and focus on a new supporting cast. Tom Cruise might not go for that, though.
 
tighr said:
If they ever do another sequel, though, I say they promote the Ethan Hunt character to more of a Team Leader role, and focus on a new supporting cast. Tom Cruise might not go for that, though.
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This film was meant to be Cruise's last, which was why it spent so much time establishing Jeremy Renner's character (who was supposed to take over as the series lead). But Cruise changed his mind about quitting because he enjoyed making this one too much (IIRC).
 
doubleohfive said:
Beyond Michelle Monaghan, has any female character appeared in more than one Mission: Impossible film?
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Thandie Newton was supposed to reprise her role for MI:III before she had to drop out. Her role was eventually changed, cast, and then completely dropped from the screenplay.
 
Aldo said:
doubleohfive said:
Beyond Michelle Monaghan, has any female character appeared in more than one Mission: Impossible film?
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Thandie Newton was supposed to reprise her role for MI:III before she had to drop out. Her role was eventually changed, cast, and then completely dropped from the screenplay.
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Thandie Newton's character is an even worse example of how poorly the Mission: Impossible films view and treat women. In M:I-2 she was just a possession bandied about between Tom Cruise and what's-his-nuts-who-wasn't-Wolverine. Again we find the female lead of the film put in a position where she's got to seduce the villain in order to help the hero.

I can accept it from a film like Hitchcock's Notorious because of when it was made, or even the reverse - Tanya Romanova being used to seduce James Bond so SPECTRE can finally off him in From Russia With Love, but in the modern, 21st century world there are a dozen better ways to plot a movie than this lazy avenue they've taken. The big bad boys club of action movies can tolerate a strong, well-written female lead without resorting to these antiquated tropes from the tired formulas of the past.
 
Can't argue with you there. There wasn't a whole lot of MI:II that was well written, or well thought out. Well, maybe the action scenes, but they were derivative of any Woo film.
 
I don't think it makes sense to talk about "the Mission: Impossible films" as a unit. The only two that really feel like parts of the same series are III and Ghost Protocol, because they're both produced by Abrams. The first and second movies feel like completely distinct entities from one another and from the latter two. They have the same name and the same lead character (plus Luther), but otherwise it's like they gave the same basic premise to three different filmmakers and had them go in completely independent directions. So I don't think many blanket generalizations can be made about the films as a whole.
 
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