Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Bird, 2011)

[X.]

I imagine the Japanese similarly going red-faced over Ken Watanabe's role in Batman Begins (AK - has forever destroyed the performance in my mind with his fantastic and hilarious mimicry!)

You know, it is my wish, if I ever get to work with Ken Watanabe (that is if he doesn't die before; because success can take its time), to show him my impression of his greatest performance!

[ozzylogic]

Anil Kapoor put the whole of India to shame.

Oh c'mon, cut the guy some slack... he wasn't that bad. Just the typical western archetype of the "cheap" Indian man. But he should have said "Jhakaaaas" once. Just once. And voila! The movie would have grossed $300M in India alone.

I really expected more from him (I guess it's due to his role in '24'. I honestly thought he was going to portray a corrupts arms dealer or something similar, not some douche who says "Indian men are hot"

This is Mission Impossible after all, not Johnny English.  

[ayaa1977]

It pandered to the lowest form of cliche (followed closely second by the silly sandstorm). Really, I can't believe this is a Mission Impossible film and not Disney a cartoon (wait...maybe by the former association of its director, it actually is).

See I do not think adhering to a cliche is a bad thing persae, otherwise all genra films (i.e. Rom-Com, horror, musical, etc) would never work. The sandstorm was over the top and would never happen this way in Dubai or any other city, but it made for a great visual and a suspenseful action scene. Anyway, I don't see the brilliant first portion up to the "sandstorm" undone by it and the subsequent India portion (which was fine by me anyway). So to summarize what I liked and disliked about the film:

What I liked the most
1. Budapest opening
2. All the Russian segment from start to finish
3. Burj Khalifah action
4. Great team chemistry between Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, and Simon Pegg. I would say this is the best team effort in all four installments.
5. Sense of humor and the constant failure of the gadgets that lead to hilarity sometimes and also made for great suspense.
6. Final car parking action scene was inventive.

Cons.
1. Boring bad guy, with very boring motivations (he is just crazy as opposed to PSH who was motivated by money an power hunger in the third film)
2. Dissapointing and wasted Jermey Renner
3. Predictable and mechanical plot
4. Heavy reliance on CG, which was not very good in many portions.