Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

This is a reboot that nearly works.

The long and the short of it is this: There's a dude who's a nuclear scientist, nuclear strategist, and ex Swedish special forces. He's played by Michael Nyqvist, who's clearly responding to Daniel Craig nicking the role he played in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by turning it about and appearing in a preposterous spy thriller. This guy believes that what the human race needs is a good nuclear war, in order to sort itself out, and thus goes about nicking the various bits and bobs necessary for starting one.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise is in a Russian prison, and IM Force agents Simon Pegg (hacker tech guy) and Paula Patton (pretty) bust him out in order that he replace agent Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) who's carelessly got himself killed during the pre-credits sequence. And they all go chasing all over Russia, Dubai and India, picking up IM Force analyst Jeremy Renner, and managing to get the entire IM Force shut down, along the way. So, they are all working on their own and without support of their government, and are the only people who can save the world. (Not sure why this was necessary, since the IM Force always works on its own, and gets disavowed if caught anyway.)

Right, so there's one major problem with this film, and yes, it's Tom Fucking Cruise again. Seriously, this film could have been made a *million* times better by the simple move of not killing Josh Holloway in the opening sequence, and letting him be the sexy hunky main agent. And when I say a million times better, I mean it, even though Cruise is the only real flaw in the film. Just like one small flaw in a tyre can make the whole thing a useless saggy mess rather than something you can drive on, Tom Cruise has that effect on the film.

Looking at the things that are not Tom Cruise, there's a lot to like. I could watch an action film starring Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner All Fucking Day, and on the occasions where they're able to get a scene together without Tom Cruise stuffing the whole thing up, they've got a good screen chemistry. I can't say that Paula Patton really achieves much more than being eye candy, but, well, sorry to be a sexist pig, but she does that well. And the whole thing is directed by Pixar supremo Brad Bird, who pulls of the same comic book hijinx as he did in The Incredibles. If they'd put Josh Holloway at the wheel of this thing, I think it'd have been absolutely great. As it is, this is rebooting a franchise without removing the thing that was wrong with the franchise in the first place. I mean, seriously, go look at the cast list of MI3 - does anyone really think that it was Ving Rhames or Philip Seymour Hoffman that was the steaming turd in the middle of that movie?