Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol ★★☆☆☆

The Mission Impossible movies shine most when they are grounded in some kind of reality. In the first movie, it makes no sense that there's a room where you can't touch the floor, and it senses temperature, and it detects sound, but then Tom Cruise is hanging by a wire, and the sound cuts out, and the tension rises as we see this very physical stunt being performed for real. The ridiculousness of the contrivance matters less when you see that these stunts are real. In Ghost Protocol, Jeremy Renner wears a "magnetic suit," drops a hundred feet, is caught by a magnet, and hovers around in a server room. It's very silly, and it looks fake, because it is fake. This movie is contrived to make a plot to watch exciting things happen to a group of people. It's silly and forgettable. The team Ethan Hunt leads is made up of misfits, and they have to work together in order to win the plot. Hearing Tom Cruise tell his team that they worked well together made me feel like I was watching a kid's TV show where they have to spell out the moral lesson learned at the end of the episode. But the most egregious sin this movie committed was breaking up Ethan Hunt and his wife, making the poignant wedding scene in M:i:III lose its meaning. I got a spoiler that she returns in a later movie, so I'll hold out some hope for that, but not too much. They're as likely to kill her off as to make her a real character. And speaking of love interests, this one teases a bit of chemistry between Ethan Hunt and his teammate, and she does have a reasonable role, but she feels one dimensional as a character. Still waiting for a proper female co-lead in one of these movies. 2 stars out of 5 because I'm so annoyed about Ethan Hunt's wife.