Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Bland as a Ghost

This movie sucked.My main problem was that they couldn't settle on the tone of the film. The plot was pretty simple, Bad guy wants to start a nuclear war to destroy the world. Sounds familiar, where have I heard this before. Try most James Bond films, most of the series 24 and a lot of spy films in general. Not only does this film rip of the classic Bond plot, it also rips of the setting, the USA vs Sovi... sorry Russia, the classic plot of Cold War era spy film plot. This wasn't a problem for me, this idea has generated some pretty awesome films in the Bond franchise as well as a few movies with a more serious tone, like Sum of All Fears.

The problem was that the movie was trying to capture a part of that Bond nostalgia, but they failed in the execution. They tried to balance between the Bond films and the more modern serious spy action films and series like 24, the Bourne trilogy or the Sum of All Fears. For a serious nuclear threat film its not serious enough and for Bond nostalgia its not insane enough.

In many Bond film the plot is that the Evil Mastermind has a nefarious plan to start a nuclear war or destroy the world and these plans are generally insane. Here is few examples.

Moonraker The Bad Guy has built several space shuttles, a massive launch facility for the shuttles in the Amazon and space station. The plan is to use neurotoxin from a rare orchid to wipe out all human life on the planet so that the Bad Guy can repopulate the planet with his perfect super race of humans.

The Spy Who Loved Me The bad guy says "fuck it, stealing launch codes or single warheads is lame, I am going to steal entire nuclear missile submarines and use those to start the nuclear war" He does this with a specially constructed oil tanker, in an operation that is conducted from his secret undersea base.

You Only Live Twice The bad guy tries to incite nuclear war by interfering with the space race. He does this by kidnapping American and Soviet spacecraft with his own purpouse built spaceship.

Diamonds are forever The bad guy has a diamond encrusted satelite dish in space which is used to direct sunlight into nuclear weapons causing them to explode.

This film is about a lone insane professor trying to start a nuclear war between US and Sovi..., sorry, Russia, because he believes that mankind will evolve as a result. Pretty lame compared to some of the stuff we got from Bond films made 40 years ago. They tried going a more conservative route but the film wasn't serious enough for that. Just watch the Sum of All Fears and you realise what I mean.

Not only is the basic plot pretty lame compared to the Bond films. The action is as well. The Bond films usually ended pretty epicly, in a massive all out battle scene where Bond takes on the Bad Guys secret lair with an army of helpers. Again examples,

Moonraker Ends in an insane battle in SPACE, when US Space Marines(I am not even kidding) attack the bad guys space station from a space shuttle with jet pack and laser guns. The battle ends with the space station being blown to bits. The action is pretty realistic(for a film with lasers and space marines), when you see guys being hit wirh lasers to their oxygen tanks spinning out of control.

The Spy Who Loved Me Involves a full out firefight when the captured submarine crews start taking over the oil tanker of doom. The battle involves flamethrowers and a scene where Bond MacGyvers a nuke into being slightly less destructive in order breach the enemy's defenses.

You Only Live Twice Ends with Bond attacking with the bad guy's lair, which was built into a volcano with ninjas equipped with katanas, shurikens and guns that fire rocker propelled exploding bullets.

Diamonds are forever Has a full on airmobile assault with Huey Gunships against the bad guy's base on an oil rig. Enough said. Only thing that would make that scene more awesome if it had Ride of the Valkyries blaring on the background.(Yes I know Apocalypse Now was made 8 years after Diamonds are Forever, but I can still dream)

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol had Tom Cruise battling the traffic in India and having a fist fight in a high tech parking garage. This is pretty lame even compared with the original Mission Impossible, which had a Helicopter chasing a TGV bullet train in a fucking TUNNEL.

From the trailers I was half expecting this to be a more serious side of a spy film, like the Bourne Series. The guys were basically disowned by their government, the movies slogan even includes "no backup", so I was expecting that they were going to be left to their own deviced without the technological gizmos they usually have and instead rely on their wits and skills, like in the Bourne series, where Jason Bourne for example makes a bomb out of a toaster, a news papers and a gas line. It would have been cool to see the tech guy MacGyver some listening devices from cell phones or something like that. But no they get their gizmos handed to them in the armoury of plot convinience.

To make the film feel more serious they would have needed to drive home the idea of how horrifying the prospect of full scale nuclear war or even the detonation of single nuke in a populalated area is. But I guess the had the idea in their heads that the audience has seen this they know what it is all about. Wrong. We need to see what the consequences of failure are. In Terminator 2 you got a real sense of how important it was for the heroes to succeed precisely because they had a very well made scene of a nuclear explosion vaporising a playground full of kids, this single scene sets up the-desperate-fight-for-survival-of-the-human-race feel of the film perfectly. Similarly in the Sum of All Fears there is a nuclear explosion scene that illustrates the effects that nuclear war would have, adding weight to the future decisions of the characters.

These are the reasons why I didn't like the film, not serious enough to be a serious film about nuclear war and not epicly crazy enough to be anywhere near as good as the Bond films that it tried to emulate. I would love if someone would make Bond-homage film similar to the Expendables was for 80s action films.