Geez, I didn't even know they were making this.

Jeremy Renner's in it?

And Simon Pegg?

And Brad Bird directed it???

Geez. And the trailer looks good!

Yeah, I hadn't heard of it until I saw a picture of it on Yahoo today?

Pegg certainly isn't a surprise considering his rising star and the fact that he was in III.

Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't see III.

It's a funny coincidence, I think, that both this movie and Sherlock Holmes had no recent posts on them and are currently the two movies people are comparing in the theaters.

I saw this today and while it was quite exciting it's still the same old IMF is disavowed and Ethan Hunt's team is the world's only hope type of story. I've noticed as the Mission Impossible movies increased in number the further it got from TV shows that made it popular, as well as it's plausibility. So to say this movie was impossible is putting it mildly.

First we have an IMF safe house on a train car in Russia that has the worst use of space I have ever seen, particularly for spies who are trying to avoid detection. I know that in reality this design was chose because it looked cool with high-tech junk all over the place but we don't deal in reality.

Then TPTB chose locations that were much too obvious and high profile for what went on in the movie to occur unnoticed. I mean trading illegal Soviet or Chinese information in Dubai? That stuff probably happens every day. Also, if there is a "military grade" security system at the towers there's no way Hunt could've crawled around outside without being seen/discovered. The second a tele-comms expert was mentioned I knew they were going to India next. But what I don't quite understand is why the bad guy, Hendricks I believe, had to go there as well to get control of a satellite? They just went to a TV station when it appeared they could go anywhere.

Finally we get to the climax of the story that involves Ethan wrestling away Russia's 'nuclear football' from nothing more than a teacher and aborting the warhead of a nuclear missile about to hit San Francisco. For one thing why do all modern villians have to be equally skilled at hand-to-hand combat as highly-trained covert operatives, even though they've been what use to be called pencil-necks their whole life? Secondly, there are only a few weapons that can be aborted after launch, I'm fairly certain only three or four, and nuclear missiles are NOT one of them, especially not submarine-launched MIRVs.

All-in-all it was an enjoyable movie and not a bad way to spend a couple hours, but a little more realism would've been nice too.

I thought the film was "fun". But that was about it.

The thing that bothered me was the Mars Rover generating enough magnetism to suspend Brandt in mid-air. Really? Where does it that sort of power to generate that much electro-magnetism?

I agree with you, AWhite, about Hendricks. I thought it was ridiculous that he could go toe-to-toe with Hunt like he did. Ethan should have stomped his butt into the next movie and then back into Mission: Impossible III.

But still, it was a fun film. But not really Mission: Impossible. But then, none of the films are.

Oh, the thing that really stretched credibility was: Ving Rhames got $7.7 million to do that?!?! I am so in the wrong line of work.

I guess Hollywood is still making it up to him for that anal rape scene he endured in Pulp Fiction.

I'm sure there were plenty of other movies that he's endured a worse scene than that Luigi ;) He got $7.7 mil for a scene that probably took one take? Hell, that scene wasn't even necessary and added nothing to the movie!

One thing I forgot to mention about Brandt was that everybody seemed surprised that he wasn't an analyst, at least not always. It was quite obvious that he was in great shape, possibly better than anybody else in the movie, yet him showing off some of his capabilities was this shocking reveal to the other characters. It's true that there are some intell analysts out there who try to stay fit, but in most cases those people have either been demoted to that position or are vying for a field operator spot.

Was Rhames even on the screen five minutes? It really seemed like a matter of, "Well, Ving's been in every M:I movie so far, but Simon Pegg's much funnier in the computer geek role, so... We'll throw the fans a bone, so to speak, and just have Rhames appear at the end of the movie to keep it all kosher." Which is fine. But damned near eight million dollars? Wow. I could've done that. In black make up, if necessary. Just give me the money.

I saw this yesterday. It was pretty good. I was also pleased by the new 100th Anniversary Paramount title sequence/logo.

And today Warners Bros. unveiled theirs. Nice.

Benn: The thing that bothered me was the Mars Rover generating enough magnetism to suspend Brandt in mid-air.
Not only that but when Brandt was entering the computer core he had to pass over a very thick and fairly wide cement support. There's no way that rover-thing could've maintained it's magnetic field keeping Brandt in the air through that.

Benn: But not really Mission: Impossible. But then, none of the films are.
I didn't think the first one was too far from serieses. A few too many plot twists to be sure but still a lot closer than the others IMO.

There's a phrase the IMF crew need to familiarize themselves with - "Police your brass." It's a phrase used in shooting circles meaning to collect your discarded shells after discharging your weapon. I use it here in a very liberal sense.

The scene where it really bugged me, the need for IMF to police its brass, is when Ethan Hunt is doing his Spider-Man climb outside the building. One of the gloves goes on the fritz and he simply throws it down to the street. When Benjy first showed Ethan the gloves, Hunt has no idea what they are, how they work, that's how advanced the tech on them is. This is VERY exclusive IMF tech. When it fails to work, Hunt doesn't try to tuck it into his pants to keep. He lets it flies away. Even if no one on the streets recognizes it as a "Spider-Man glove", they will see that it is very different from other gloves, has a lot of wiring and will wonder just wtf do it do? And then take it to someone who might be able to reverse engineer the glove. Again, this is VERY exclusive tech. Ethan Hunt, an IMF team leader, was not aware of it. You would think Ethan would try a little harder to make sure the glove didn't get away from him.

Then, earlier in the film Ethan rips off the mask he was wearing and throws it on the ground. Now, keep in mind these masks the IMF use are so sophisticated, that Rick Baker, with an unlimited budget, on his best day, could not hope to match the quality of these masks. The chemical composition of these disguises must be very advanced. And while yes, it is possible that Ethan presumed the upcoming explosion would destroy the mask, it's also equally possible it would survive the explosion somehow, allowing the Russians to examine it and discover how IMF makes such exquisite masks. That is extremely value tech that IMF needs that Hunt is potentially giving away.

Brandt and Benjy do not recover their Mars Rover, which, to generate (however improbably) enough magnetism to support Brandt's weight, is way above what tech currently exists. It should not have been left behind - in the home of Indian entrepreneur, Brij Nath - somebody rich enough and with the resources to take the thing apart and learn what makes it ticks. Fail.

I'm sure there are more examples in this film and the previous ones. But it's really annoying to me. IMF uses technology that should be almost exclusive to them. They should do everything they can to insure it doesn't fall into the "wrong hands", something the original series, in which Briggs and later Phelps and their teams made sure to leave no trace they were ever in the area of their operations.

Police your brass, guys. Really. It's that simple.

Couple of things in the sandstorm sequence: For one thing, Wistrom steals/gets into his car and drive off - with the window rolled down?! In a sandstorm?!?! Really?!?! I mean, it's convenient for Hunt. After all, Ethan gets to lie on top of the car and punch Wistrom through the open window. But realistically, if you're in a sandstorm, in a car, among the first things you do is roll up the effing windows. And with virtually zero visibility, why is Wistrom even bothering to drive the car? He doesn't know Ethan can track him. As far as he knows, once in the car, he's hidden away from Ethan. Why risk a car crash?

You'd also think Ethan and Wisrom would have been cut up by the grains of sands, but hey, that'd be paying attention to details.