Exclusive preview - Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

Last month in London, we got a chance to get eyes on with some early scenes from upcoming action epic Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

First things first, this wasn’t your regular run of the mill preview. Eager to show off the scale of the latest entry in the series, Paramount had only gone and booked out the BFI Imax for their screening. Roughly 25 percent of Ghost Protocol has been shot using 65 mm cameras and the two scenes we’re set to see today heavily feature the footage.

Producer Bryan Burk was on hand to introduce the footage and said they chose to shoot in the IMAX format for the extra clarity and scale it afforded them, particularly during certain action set pieces. He went on to say that fellow producer and star Tom Cruise was intent on making this fourth film more international, with a more varied cast and locations which include trips to Prague, Moscow, Mumbai and of course Dubai.

The Mission: Impossible films have always been self contained stories and have also distinguished themselves by bringing in a new director each time. For Ghost Protocol, it’s the turn of Brad Bird – a name you might be familiar with from countless episodes of The Simpsons or the writer and director of 1999’s The Iron Giant. But we here at Click remember him most for bringing the finest Pixar film of all time to life in 2004’s The Incredibles. He’s tackling his first live action feature here but as Burk pointed out, his animations have always felt like live action productions and we think he’s going to do a fantastic job with Ethan Hunt’s latest caper.

To bring you up to speed with the story; after an attack on the Kremlin, the Impossible Mission Force (the other IMF) is blamed and disavowed by the American government. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team are forced to go on the run to prove their innocence with no backup and little chance to stop World War 3.

We were treated to two scenes set in the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, where the team – including Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton – are setting up an operation to ambush a meeting. The first scene begins with familiar elements like subterfuge and latex masks, until tech expert Pegg realises that gaining access to the buildings server room might not be as easy as he’d hoped – forcing Cruise to step outside with some specially engineered climbing gloves in a race against time to access the buildings securities.

As Cruise suits up and steps to the edge of the frankly ridiculously tall tower, the image expands from regular 2.35 widescreen to the eyeball filling majesty of full 1.44 : 1 IMAX. When the camera turns down to survey the sheer height of the building and the actor standing at the edge of the 130 floor drop, it’s a stomach-churning moment. In a good way.

Scaling the building would just be another piece of stunt work in a different film but Cruise’s commitment to the part is nigh on suicidal, clambering around on the outside of the building with the slenderest of harnesses. There are zero cutaways to stunt performers and while it may not be obvious in every shot, the fact that it’s actually the actor putting his life on the line is suitably impressive.



The scene continues with much cross cutting between Cruises progress and the rest of the team, culminating in failing power gloves and a rapid, vertical jogging descent as a massive sandstorm approaching the building. It’s ridiculously thrilling stuff but mere preamble to what they have in store next.

After a cut, Cruise is sprinting at full pace away from the afore mentioned sandstorm, in pursuit of a shadowy figure who has made off with a mission critical briefcase. We’ve become used to more and more exaggerated chase scenes in recent years but this redefines the meaning of the term epic, with no parkour ridiculousness but plenty of environmental obstacles as the surrounding area becomes cloaked in a cloud of particles as Cruise desperately tries to keep up with his foe.

An on foot pursuit becomes a deadly faceoff as both men gain a vehicle, with Cruise able to keep up thanks to a locator in the briefcase, with that beeping arrow sometimes the only indication of direction once the sand fills the screen. That locator is used to great effect during the finale when Cruise tires of the chase and manipulates his enemy into a game of chicken, bailing at the last minute and using his car as a weapon in a moment you might have glimpsed in the high octane trailer.



It’s all for naught however as his quarry escapes, pulling off a mask with a typically Mission: Impossible flourish to reveal his identity - Michael Nyqvist, here playing main baddie Kurt Hendricks.

With a mere two scenes it’s hard to get a grasp of the main narrative for Ghost Protocol, but there’s little doubt that the action is well mounted, large scale and genuinely exciting, with or without the Imax element. Perhaps the most surprising element was the well handled humour, and not just from old reliable Pegg. Renner makes for a great straight man as events get more and more out of hand and the light tone works well against the set pieces to give the film an adventure movie tone which we’ve not seen much of in recent years.

Renner’s a great boon to the series ahead of his inauguration as a leading man in next year’s The Bourne Legacy and there’s support here from the likes of Josh Holloway, Tom Wilkinson and Nyqvist. And then there’s Cruise himself, who has been the engine which drives the Mission: Impossible series since its beginning back in 1996. In a world where movie stars are few and far between, there’s little doubt that he still fits the bill.

As we recently lamented in our look at the top five action scenes of 2011, it’s been a particularly poor year for movie fans fond of a well constructed set piece, as filmmakers lean more and more in the direction of creating trailer worthy moments rather than extended, thrilling sequences. On the evidence we saw in these two scenes and the pedigree of the director, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol looks set to change that, while simultaneously ending the year with a good old action movie bang.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is in regular and IMAX cinemas from the 26th of December.