Mission: Impossible :– Ghost Protocol is a 2011 American action spy film directed by Brad Bird (in his live-action directorial debut) from a screenplay by the writing team of Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, who also serve as co-producers. Produced by Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, it is the sequel to Mission: Impossible III (2006) and is the fourth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. The film stars Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Paula Patton, with Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Josh Holloway, Anil Kapoor, and Léa Seydoux in supporting roles. In the film, the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) is shut down after being publicly implicated in a bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team to go without resources or backup in a life-threatening effort to clear their names.
Development for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol began in August 2009, when Appelbaum and Nemec were hired to write the screenplay (which contained rewrites by eventual series director and writer Christopher McQuarrie). Cruise's return was confirmed by March 2010 after Bird was announced to replace Abrams, who directed the predecessor. The film was officially titled in October 2010, after which, principal photography took place and lasted until March 2011, with filming locations including Bangalore, Mumbai, Budapest, Moscow, Dubai, and Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios in Vancouver. Like previous entries in the franchise, the cast completed most of their own stunts, while parts of the film were shot in IMAX.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol premiered in Dubai on December 7, 2011, and was released in IMAX and select large-format theaters on December 16, before being theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on December 21. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences, Cruise's performance, and Bird's direction. It grossed $694 million worldwide, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011 as well as the highest-grossing film in the franchise and the highest-grossing film starring Cruise until the release of Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 2018. The film was followed by Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Plot:
IMF agent Trevor Hanaway is killed in Budapest by assassin Sabine Moreau, who steals Russian nuclear launch codes to sell to a man named "Cobalt". IMF agent Ethan Hunt is extracted from a Moscow prison, along with an asset named Bogdan, by Hanaway's handler and girlfriend Jane Carter and newly-promoted field agent Benji Dunn. The team is ordered to infiltrate the Kremlin for information on Cobalt. While they are inside, Cobalt blows the team's cover, and they escape before a bomb destroys the Kremlin. Ethan is arrested by SVR agent Anatoly Sidorov and is blamed for the bombing.
Ethan escapes and meets with the IMF Secretary, who is in Moscow with analyst William Brandt. Brandt identifies Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks, a strategist seeking nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. They determine that Hendricks bombed the Kremlin to cover his theft of a Russian launch control device. The Secretary explains that the President has initiated "Ghost Protocol", disavowing the IMF. He secretly orders Ethan to continue pursuing Cobalt before being killed in an ambush by Sidorov's forces. Ethan escapes with Brandt and regroups with Jane and Benji. They plan to infiltrate a meeting between Hendricks' associate, Wistrom, and Moreau at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where Wistrom will buy the stolen launch codes.
The team plans to intercept the codes by faking two meetings: Ethan and Brandt posing as Wistrom and Leonid Lisenker, a cryptographer, to receive the codes from Moreau; Jane poses as Moreau, passing counterfeit codes to the real Wistrom and Lisenker. They are forced to give the real codes when they discover that Lisenker can immediately authenticate them, relying on radioactive isotopes on the paper to track Wistrom afterward. Completing the buy, Wistrom double-crosses and murders Lisenker. Moreau, having deduced that the buy is a setup, attempts to flee, but Jane intercepts her. When Moreau attacks Benji while trying to escape, an enraged Jane breaks her promise to Ethan earlier about fighting assets and attacks Moreau. Brandt overhears the gunfire and rushes into the room, attempting to stop Jane from kicking Moreau out a window. However, Jane fails to listen and kicks Moreau out the window to her death. Sidorov attempts but fails to apprehend Ethan, who flees the Burj Khalifa and pursues Wistrom.
- Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt: An agent of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).
- Jeremy Renner as William Brandt: The IMF Secretary's aide and an intelligence analyst.
- Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn: A new IMF field agent and former IMF technician.
- Paula Patton as Jane Carter: An IMF agent and Hanaway's handler who works with Ethan.
- Michael Nyqvist as Kurt Hendricks: A Swedish-born Russian nuclear strategist codenamed "Cobalt".
- Vladimir Mashkov as Anatoly Sidorov: A Russian SVR Agent who is after Ethan.
- Léa Seydoux as Sabine Moreau: An assassin who worked for Hendricks at Dubai.
- Josh Holloway as Trevor Hanaway: An IMF agent murdered by Moreau.
- Anil Kapoor as Brij Nath: A media tycoon at Mumbai.
- Samuli Edelmann as Marius Wistrom: Hendrick's henchman.
- Ivan Shvedoff as Leonid Lisenker: A cryptography expert coerced by Hendricks.
- Miraj Grbić as Bogdan: An informant in a Moscow prison.
- Ilia Volok as The Fog: An arms dealer and Bogdan's cousin.
- Andreas Wisniewski as The Fog's contact. Wisniewski's character originally appeared in Mission: Impossible, working for arms dealer Max.
- Tom Wilkinson (uncredited) as the IMF Secretary
- Ving Rhames (uncredited cameo) as Luther Stic kell
- Michelle Monaghan (uncredited cameo) as Julia Meade-Hunt: Ethan's
Despite Mission: Impossible III (2006) earning less than its predecessors at the box office, its critical reception was much better than that of its predecessors and Paramount Pictures was keen on developing a fourth Mission: Impossible film in the series.[9] In August 2009, Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec were hired to write the film's screenplay.[10] Because of other commitments, J. J. Abrams said that it was unlikely for him to return as director but made note that he would produce the film alongside Tom Cruise.[11] By March 2010, director Brad Bird was in talks of directing the film with Cruise returning to star as Ethan Hunt.
In 2009, before his death, Peter Graves contacted J. J. Abrams, expressing interest in reprising his role as Jim Phelps.
The film was originally announced with the working title of Mission: Impossible 4 and code-named "Aries" during early production. By August 2010, title considerations did not include the Mission: Impossible 4 name, and thought was given to omitting the specific term "Mission: Impossible", which Variety compared to Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel film The Dark Knight In late October 2010, the title was confirmed as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
Christopher McQuarrie, who later directed Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), did an uncredited rewrite of the screenplay, explaining that:
The musical score for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was composed by Michael Gia chino, who also composed the music for the third film and collaborated with Bird on The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). As in previous installments, the score incorporates Lalo Schifrin's themes from the original television series. "Lalo is an amazing jazz writer. You know you can't write a straight-up jazz score for a film like this but you can certainly hint at it here and there," said Gia chino , explaining the stylistic influence generated by Schifrin's history with the franchise soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande on December 13, 2011.
THEARTICAL:
Following the world premiere in Dubai on December 7, 2011, the film was released in IMAX and other large-format theaters in the U.S. on December 16, 2011, with general release on December 21, 2011. This is the first film to use the new Paramount Pictures logo, with the a brand new fanfare composed by Michael Gia chino, who also composed the film, as part of the studio's 100th anniversary in 2012.
HOME MEDIA:
Ghost Protocol grossed $209.4 million in North America and $485.3 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $694.7 million. It is the second-highest-grossing film worldwide in the Mission: Impossible series and the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011 It is also the third-highest-grossing film worldwide starring Cruise, surpassing War of the Worlds from the top spot. It was the franchise's highest-grossing film and Cruise's biggest film at the time of release, before being surpassed by Mission: Impossible – Fallout seven years later.
In limited release at 425 locations in North America, it earned $12.8 million over its opening weekend .After five days of limited release, it expanded to 3,448 theaters on its sixth day and reached #1 at the box office with $8.92 million The film reached the top stop at the box office in its second and third weekends with $29.6 million and $29.4 million, respectively. Though only 9% of the film's screenings were in IMAX theaters, they accounted for 23% of the film's box office.
Outside North America, it debuted to a $69.5 million in 42 markets representing approximately 70% of the marketplace. In the United Arab Emirates, it set an opening-weekend record of $2.4 million (since surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers). In two countries outside the U.S. in which filming took place, its opening weekend gross increased by multiples over the previous installment: in Russia, more than doubling, to $6.08 million and in India, more than quadrupling, to $4.0 million. It is the second-highest-grossing Mission: Impossible film outside North America It topped the box office outside North America for three consecutive weekends (during December 2011) and five weekends in total (the other two in 2012).Its highest-grossing markets after North America are China ($102.5 million), Japan ($69.7 million), and South Korea ($51.1 million).
CRITICAL RESPONSE:
On Rotten Tomatoes, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol has an approval rating of 93% based on 253 reviews and an average rating of 7.7/10. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads: "Stylish, fast-paced, and loaded with gripping set pieces, the fourth Mission: Impossible is big-budget popcorn entertainment that really works." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100 based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by Cinema Score gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of four stars, saying the film "is a terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry." Stephen Whitty of The Star-Ledger wrote "The eye-candy—from high-tech gadgets to gorgeous people—has only been ratcheted up. And so has the excitement." He also gave the film 3.5 out of four stars. Giving the film three out of four stars, Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe said "In its way, the movie has old-Hollywood elegance. The scope and sets are vast, tall, and cavernous, but Bird scales down for spatial intimacy."
Philippa Hawker of The Sydney Morning Herald gave the film three stars out of five and said it is "ludicrously improbable, but also quite fun." Owen Gl ber man of Entertainment Weekly opined that the movie "brims with scenes that are exciting and amazing at the same time; they're brought off with such casual aplomb that they're funny, too. .. Ghost Protocol is fast and explosive, but it's also a supremely clever sleight-of-hand thriller. Brad Bird, the animation wizard, .. showing an animator's miraculously precise use of visual space, has a playful, screw-tightening ingenuity all his own."[Roger Moore of The Charlotte Observer gave the film three out of four stars; said "Brad Bird passes his audition for a career as a live-action director. And Ghost Protocol more than makes its bones as an argument for why Tom Cruise should continue in this role as long as his knees, and his nerves, hold up."
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