We saw MI:4 and it was OK

[drwex]

Formally "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol". I'd avoided MI:3 because... well, Tom Cruise. F'ing insane missionary of an f'ing insane cult and all that. But Pygment wanted to see this one, so we went. It was OK. 3.5/5 stars. It's not bad action-adventure, and they do a moderately good job of being not-Bond. I thought the fight scenes were dragged out a lot, but that was kind of necessary because the entire film seems to be a long string on which various fight scenes get hung at appropriate points. There's no real surprises or plot twists - basically the IMF starts out behind the 8-ball and has to chase after the villains all film in order to catch up.

Bonus points for the co-stars: Paula Patton does the token female agent thing extremely well. She gets to be emotional without being overwrought and whiny, and she gets to kick ass without being exclusively a spinny killbot. Jeremy Renner also turns in a good, if slightly tortured, performance as the surprise smackdown kid. He also gets the best line in the movie: At one point Renner's character is getting tossed about and says "Next time I get to seduce the billionaire!" which is very funny if the mental image of male-male seduction doesn't bother you. Bonus points to the scriptwriters for nodding to "teh gay" in a het-male macho film.

Spoilers under the cut:
In the Dubai hotel there is an elaborate ritual conducted to copy/obfuscate the launch codes. Things go slightly wrong in that Sabine Moreau figures out what's going on and tries to bolt. Meanwhile the downstairs team has already swapped diamonds for the faked codes. When things go squirrely, Kurt Hendricks escapes and there's a big chase in the sandstorm.

Hendricks escapes, which is unfortunate but he escapes with the scrambled codes. At no point do I recall him ever interacting with Moreau, nor does he ever take the case of true codes from Brandt. All the rest from there is hokum since he has a set of sabotaged codes and can't launch with them. Right?

Comments

Can't cut in replies. This is spoiler

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

Nope, he gets the real codes. He has an expert with him who was validating the code so they couldn't be faked. That was the whole copier out the window bit.

[drwex]

When and how? There's just no point where he gets his hands on the same case as the real codes are in.

I don't remember the copier out the window bit, but remember there's the whole bit with the gimmicked contact lens that preserves words but scrambles numbers. That was to fool his expert who can't possibly know that the numbers are scrambled since they're essentially random to begin with.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

Do you remember the scene where they argue about whether or not to use the real codes, and they decide they must? That's when Brant almost threw the copier out the window. They use the real codes *because* he's got the guy to verify the real codes and they take the chance, hoping they'll get kurt later.

[drwex]

This is, I believe, the same scene Pygment is referring to. And if I'm remembering correctly it precedes the whole business of him putting in the contact lens.

If they're not going to intercept the codes then there's no need to go through the whole rigamarole of the doubled meeting - they could just have let the two of them meet and do the swap directly and then tail him afterward.