Is Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol 'the best action movie of the year'?

Surprise, surprise. The majority of critics are heaping praise on the fourth installment in the M:I franchise, the first live-action flick directed by Pixar's Brad Bird

"Mission: Impossible"
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Star Tom Cruise may be pushing 50 and the franchise 15, but critics are finding a lot to like in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, which opens in IMAX and select theatres Friday and goes wide the following week. In the fourth M:I flick, Cruise resumes his role as renegade spy Ethan Hunt while vaunted Pixar writer-director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) ably takes the helm of his first live-action film. One commentator calls it "the best action movie of the year." Really?

Yes! This is it, "at long last, the year's best action flick," says Andrew O'Hehir at Salon. Who knew "an aging star often viewed as a weirdo" and an animation director had it in them? Bird's stylish, energetic direction makes you wonder "why the hell" he hasn't made more movies by age 54, while Cruise embues a messy, long-haired Ethan Hunt with an easy charisma. The film "has not just one or two but four or five of the most coherent and exciting action sequences in recent history," including a "beautifully choreographed" finale in a parking garage in Mumbai. "This is pure escapist cinema at its best, without morality or apology or guilt."

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