Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Tom Cruise runs, swims, drives, jumps and kicks ass.  The end.  In between, the glue that binds those actions together that makes it a movie isn't all that interesting.  Personally, the much hyped Cruise doing his own stunt jumping off the tallest building seems more exciting on YouTube than it is in the movie.  Perhaps, I don't know, maybe the storytelling doesn't make it all that exciting.  Director Bird seems to be very fond of the first MI (1996), he even brings back the long hair dude who leads Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to see Max.  For a second, I thought I am going to see Max (Vanessa Redgrave) again.  Alas, that didn't happen.  Then of course, we have the party scene in India which is much inferior than a similar scene in the first MI embassy scene.  The tribute doesn't stop there, Bird has Jeremy Renner jumps down some chute and floats by magnetic force a la Tom Cruise in the vault stealing the NOC list.  And finally when Bird doesn't know what to do he brings back Ving Rhames to close out the movie, what's missing of course, is the ridiculously catchy and out of nowhere Dreams by The Cranberries.  I always find it odd to have Dreams played in the end of MI.  But then so is the way Cruise runs, upright, chest protruding, looking all serious, urgent and oddly amusing.