Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

I think I was the only person on the face of this big, wide planet who didn't hate "Van Helsing." Seriously, it wasn't that bad. It was loud and stupid and had a bit too much CGI, true, but it had a lot of fun action, it was sleek and stylized, and it was loaded with homages to the classic Warner Bros. monster movies. I saw it as a love letter to those films, and I was down with that. Why everybody hated it I'm honestly not sure. Between that and the fact that I apparently am the sole person who like the Benicio Del Toro remake of "The Wolfman," I guess I'm just a sucker for those movies. What can I say?

The only reason I bring "Van Helsing" up is because that's probably the first place your mind will go when first hearing about "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters." And if your opinion of "Van Helsing" was low to bad to "Put a bullet in my head to make the pain go away," which was a popular opinion based on conversations I've had, than there's not much hope for you with "Hansel and Gretel." One reason being that the two films do share a relatively similar feel. The other (and likely more significant) reason being that between the two is that while I thought "Hansel and Gretel" was passably alright, I will say without hesitation that I liked "Van Helsing" better. Much better.

Just imagine "Van Helsing" as an R-rated buddy movie that can't decide whether or not it's action/horror or action/comedy, which has an odd penchant for exploding heads, directed by a guy who seemingly really wants to be Timur Bekmambetov . Then you've basically got "Hansel and Gretel." Speaking of Timur, there's more than a little hint of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" here, although this film isn't nearly as boring as that (literal) train wreck was.

Dude, I didn't know Marduk was in town! Play Throne of Rats!!!

Everything you need to know about the plot you can guess from the poster. Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are two siblings who kill a witch when they were younger after stupidly going into a house made out of candy. Since their parents get killed during the whole debacle, they decide death-dealing is their calling in life, and they go around the countryside like the Ghostbusters, riding the world of witches wherever they find them.

And, like "Van Helsing," naturally they have an arsenal of anachronistic weaponry of the "almost steampunk" variety which make no sense at all given the setting. At least with that movie it was KIND of plausible. They laid out the foundations of how Van Helsing's automatic crossbow worked, and conceptually it made sense. Here though, the weapons and tech are just kind of there without any reason or sense. But hey, what are they going to do? NOT give Hansel a large clip, semi-automatic shotgun made from vague Dark Ages technology that looks like it came out of "Gears of War?" We wouldn't have a movie without that.

"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

You can sing the rest of it along with the movie as it goes. They are called to a town having a witch problem, they stop a girl from being unjustly burned as a witch even though it's so horrifyingly obvious she's going to turn out to actually be a witch later, they investigate, things get out of control, lots of townsfolk die, they find out things about their past which would have been surprising had I not seen them coming half an hour beforehand, they learn not all witches are evil, they have a final confrontation with the bad witches, they win, roll credits.

That's really the biggest problem with the film. It's really generic and doesn't do anything you haven't seen thousands of times before. The craft with which it was made is acceptable I suppose, but that isn't enough to make it interesting. You could get Christopher Nolan to direct a Spiderman origin story and it would still be boring as hell because shellfish on the ocean floor know the origin of Spiderman, and they're sick of seeing it too! It doesn't matter how well it's made.

Oooh, how edgy: A dark, gritty re-imagining. Viva la revolución.

Most people would see it for Jeremy Renner, being on everyone's hot list now for reasons that I guess I can understand. I guess. He's alright. I'm not as huge of a fan of his as other people are, but he reminds me of a young Gerard Butler. I think it's the way they both are always pursing their lips. It's annoying. Although between the two of them Renner is definitely the better actor. He's okay in "Hansel and Gretel" but it definitely comes across more like a paycheck movie.

The rest of the cast is either forgettable or bad, with the exception of Famke Janssen, who, in her vast hotness is both alluring and reasonably intimidating as the main baddie. That's unsurprising when you consider she played one of the best (and hottest) Bond girls ever, Xenia Onatopp. However, this film oddly enough contains another Bond girl with Gemma Arterton as Gretel, who was in one of the worst Bond films ever, "Quantum of Solace," and is an all-around horrible actress. I still have 'Nam flashbacks of her in "Prince of Persia" that makes me want to lobotomize myself with an egg beater.

And what's up with you dropping f-bombs all the time in this movie? It's really distracting.

And can I PLEASE go just a few months without having to sit through another freaking movie with Peter Stormare? I HATE that guy and his nasally, wheezing, "Where in the hell are you even from" accent. At least he gets his head crushed by a troll in the beginning of the second act. That was satisfying.

Man this movie was pretty dumb, now that I watch the trailer and am reminded all of I had forgotten.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Hansel and Gretel" isn't offensively bad, but it's not very good. It's more forgettable than irritating. If an R-rated version of  "The Brother's Grimm" with an abundance of oddly out of place gore sounds appealing to you, go for it. Personally I would watch "Van Helsing" three times in a row before watching this again. But at least it had the good taste to be under an hour and a half. Can't fault them on that.

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

You know, spy movies are like making bacon. To make sure it is perfect, there are certain things to look out for.

First, when frying it in a pan, be sure to only cook it in its own greases, as it needs nothing else. For this reason it is also advisable to cook more than simply a few strips at a time, so as to be sure there is enough grease to go around, otherwise it may burn.

Also, there is no need for constant flipping. Once per side is enough, similar to if you were cooking a steak.

Finally, never put cold bacon straight into a hot pan. Always lay the strips in a room temperature pan first, then put the pan on a burner at medium high heat. This will ensure an even cooking, and prevent burning.

You see, if the bacon were the characters, and the pan is the script, and the grease is the action, you have to make sure that the script isn't too hot, because the characters might start splattering action everywhere and make your stove-top all greasy. Maybe some might splash on your arms and it might string real bad, and you want to wipe it off you quick because it's burning your arm, but your hands are full because you're turning the characters with a fork and if you drop it than a bunch of action is going to get all over your shoes and the floor and it might cause moderately severe burns and grease fires suck to put out so you better just take the pain.

The point I'm trying to make here is that I don't like the Bourne movies. But I do like bacon. Hmm. That analogy made more sense in my head...

Pictured above: Espionage.

Going into "The Bourne Legacy" I had been made aware that unless you were a big fan of the Bourne series up to this point, and had a pretty good knowledge of them going into it, this was going to be a really rough movie to watch. The word "confusing" popped up more than a few occasions. Apparently "The Bourne Legacy" takes place while the events of the third film are going on, kind of like a companion piece to it, if you will. However, from what I understood watching the film, while events from "The Bourne Ultimatum" affect this film, the events from this film don't affect "The Bourne Ultimatum." I think.

I get the feeling I'm going to have to fall back on the phrase "I think" more often than I'd like when talking about this film. In the case of "The Bourne Ultimatum" I have to resort to it because honestly, I slept through a good chunk of that film. That was an intensely boring experience for me, and I literally have no memory of it. None. The only thing I think I remember is a shot near the end where someone sitting in their car looks in their side mirror and sees someone else walking down the street. That's it. Mothra could have gotten elected as the new Pope in that movie and I wouldn't remember it. Although since I can't remember otherwise, I have to assume that Mothra becoming Pope could have indeed happened.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't care for this movie any more than I cared for the others, which was not a lot. And while I had no idea what was going on in the Matt Damon Bourne movies, at least they had the decency to have a modicum of action in them. Well, at least the first one did. I can't remember the others.

The biggest problem with "The Bourne Legacy" is that it's boring. It's a bunch of talking heads spewing lingo-laden techobabble. Remember in any of the various "Star Trek" series whenever someone, usually Spock or Data would start rattling off some indecipherable science speak which basically boiled down into something really simple like "We need to increase the power to this thing" except it sounded really smart? That's "The Bourne Legacy" in a nutshell. Just 2 hours and 10 minutes of just that, except they're replacing science-speak with espionage-speak.

Every line of dialogue Edward Norton has could be followed by the question, "What?"

I could figure out the "what" of the movie. I knew what was going on, because at the core it's really not difficult to "get." Jeremy Renner is part of what can only be described as a super solider program. He needs meds to stay alive. Jason Bourne happens. The people running the program flip out and try to kill all their agents to cover it up. Jeremy Renner grabs a doctor who worked on the meds to make it so he doesn't need meds anymore. They go to Malaysia, get the cure, and now he doesn't need meds anymore. The end.

That's the plot. I knew the "what" but the thing that made it really frustrating was that I had no idea what was going on with the "who" or "why." It's just a bunch of people talking about whatever and doing stuff and running from some other people because of who knows why and they need to get this thingy because they need it for that thingy and oh look a motorcycle. I know what one of those things are. So hey, is anyone going to get shot in the face in this thing or what?

"Oh, this? Naw, man. This is my cell phone. I made it look just like a gun. And in hindsight, I'm not sure why."

I shouldn't have to tell you that it's a very annoying way to watch a movie. But such is the current state of the "spy thriller." Nothing can be simple like blowing up Fort Knox to make the price of gold skyrocket. No, you need plots within schemes within conspiracies. And you know, it really makes me miss the overblown, exposition laden monologues the villains give where they explain what their plan is, because trust me, some clarity in this movie would have been nice. Not that it would have mattered much, since "The Bourne Legacy" doesn't even have a central villain.

That's right, there's no antagonist. Oh sure, there are people out there trying to shoot him for various, poorly defined reasons, but really, the antagonist in this film is the fact that he has to take medication. Oh, take THAT Blowfeldt! That's some hardcore conflict going on there. What's next, is Wilfred Brimley going to get into a high-speed helicopter chase with his diabeetus?

Oh man. Now I want them to bring back "Airwolf" and cast Wilfred Brimley in the lead.

And for those of you who saw the film and are going to bring it up, no, the little Asian man on the motorcycle doesn't count. I said "central villain." You can't throw a random little Asian man in with 20 minutes left for a chase scene and call him the antagonist. And Edward Norton doesn't count, either. With the exception of a flashback which makes little sense and adds nothing to anything, the two are never on screen with each other, and I'm not entirely sure that Renner's character knows if Norton is the one trying to find him. So it's entirely possible that our protagonist isn't even aware of the "bad guy." Truly an earth-shaking rivalry equal to Holmes and Moriarty!

Don't lie to me, press photo. This 35 second scene is the only time they share screen time.

The action that's in it, when it feels like having it, is at best just OK. Certainly it's not good enough to make us wait for as long as they do. There's a shootout in a house that's halfway passable, and there is the centerpiece action scene with the motorcycles, but I honestly found that last chase to be kind of redundant to the point of boredom. It also didn't help that I had no idea who the guy chasing them was supposed to be. And of course it's all filmed in that patented Bourne style shaky camera which guarantees that you'll have no idea what's going on, although to be fair it's better shot than the rest of the Bourne movies.

But there was one other thing that "The Bourne Legacy" had that the Matt Damon series did not. And what that thing was is quite possibly one of the singlehandedly greatest moments that I've seen in any movie ever, and I'm dead serious. There's a scene in this film that is Barney Stinson level Legendary. You can't even contemplate the awesomeness. Or the hilarity.

Allow me to set the scene for you.

So Jeremy Renner is 2 miles from the middle of Nowhere, Alaska, right? He has a tracking device in his hip. The people trying to kill him are using that device to lock on to him and fire missiles at him from a drone aircraft. So he cuts out the tracking device and sits by a tree to wait for the wolves that have been following him for days to find him.

As the wolves find him, Jeremy Renner straight up tackles the pack leader like Warren Sapp, an act which is by itself so absurdly hardcore that it deserves its own discussion. As he wrestles the wolf into a full-nelson headlock, he manages to jam the tracking device down its throat.

See where this is going? Yeah, it's going exactly where you think it's going.

"Oh crap."

Jeremy then starts running away from the wolves as we see the drone lock on to the signal. As the missile is launched, streaking towards the target, Jeremy, in slow motion action hero glory, makes his final dash through the woods. And then BOOM! A massive explosion behind him completely annihilates that poor furry bastard who had no idea what was in store for him when he woke up that morning.

And I could not stop laughing. It was one of the most hysterical things I'd seen all year up to that point. I mean, how many movies have the hero taking out a wolf with a goddamn Stinger missile? That's one of the best uses of "overkill" I've seen. That's Schwarzenegger level ridiculous. That's like John Malkovitch's death scene in "Con Air." That's like dropping Knights of The Round on an Imp with 3 HP in "Final Fantasy." That's like the Mythbusters cleaning out a dump truck with 500 lbs of high explosives.

That, my friends, is awesome.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I will be the first to admit that I am not the best judge of these movies based on the fact that I plain don't like them, but I did not like "The Bourne Legacy." Maybe if you're a huge Bourne fan you'd dig it. Maybe. But for me, with the exception of the exploding wolf scene, it's just boring, unmemorable, and confusing. Skip it.

The Avengers (2012)

I intensely dislike Joss Whedon. I would love to punch him in the face. Him and that smug style of writing he has. I can't explain it, but there it is. I've never been able to put my finger on what it is about his writing that just irritates me to no end, but I'd say there are two big factors: smugness and the fans.

The first factor is pretty self-explanatory: Whedon's writing is full of itself. Nearly every line from every character in one of his shows is some quirky, wink-at-the-camera, oh-I'm-so-clever, snarky joke that I just never see the humor in. And the second factor, the fans, love it.

Oh you Joss Whedon fans. I really am not too fond of you, either. Not on a personal level, no you're fine people generally speaking, but you just can't wrap your heads around the fact that I don't like Joss Whedon can you? That fries you to your core, doesn't it? It just gets under your skin and festers like a wound. Your eyes go wide, your jaw drops and you shout "WHAT?!" at me when I responded (after you asked) that I didn't like "Firefly." Then you tell me I have no taste in sci-fi. Every time. You lot are nothing if not consistent, I'll give you that.

 "You DARE defy The Great Forehead?! Destroy him, my minions! FLY!!!"

I've actually been threatened with physical violence over "Firefly" before on two separate occasions, so don't tell me you people can't get a bit intense. "Star Trek" fans don't do that when I say I liked "Voyager." They just roll their eyes and say "Next Gen" was better. That's called "civility," people. I'm sorry your show only lasted a season. Trust me, FOX screwed me out of MY favorite show, "Arrested Development" too. I feel your pain. WE ARE KIN.

So before going into "The Avengers," let me clear the air and address some things right now. Here are the issues which I'm sure I'm going to get called on, and let me answer them here and now.

1) "You're going into it with a bad attitude!"
I wasn't too excited about "The Avengers," no, but I wasn't dreading it. I was more neutral. But I've never liked Joss Whedon's works before, so you can't blame me for being apprehensive.

2) "It's just a movie, dude! Turn off your brain and have fun!"
I like to have fun with my brain ON, thank you very much. I don't consider mindless acceptance a positive quality to have. That trait is why Michael Bay still has a career. It's kind of evil.

3) "Why do you have to nitpick everything and ruin everyone's fun?"
Because unlike most of you, I'm a critic. It's what I do. I've been doing it for years. I was published in a newspaper. It was my job. What do you think my reviews would have been like had I just typed IT WAS AWESOME 100 times? It doesn't mean I'm necessarily out to ruin stuff, I'm analyzing it. And don't ask me what I thought if you don't want the truth.

4) "But in the COMIC they explain-"
Didn't read. Don't care. Irrelevant.

5) "Well I thought it was awesome."
Cool! I thought it was mediocre!

Ok? Now on the part where I make a lot of people mad at me. Beforehand, let me just say, I'm sorry and please don't firebomb my house.

Before I get into the character aspects of the film that I found annoying, I'd first like to bring up some plot related stuff that really irked me. First up is that there seemed to be some real inconsistency in powers. Most of this come from The Hulk. Now, at about the halfway point of the film, Thor has a fight with The Hulk, and while he doesn't exactly beat him up, it was a pretty close fight before it got cut short. However, later in the film, Thor has his little showdown with Loki and can't touch him. And then here comes Hulk, beating the ever-loving cream-filled stuffing out of Loki.

How does that work? We also have to assume Thor was probably going easy on Hulk at least a bit, since he probably didn't want to really hurt him, if that was even possible. But there's no way he was going easy on Loki. So if Thor could hold his own against Hulk while holding back, and Hulk could just sneeze on Loki to pulverize him, Loki verses Thor at full tilt shouldn't even have been close. Instead, Loki pretty much wins that fight. So exactly how powerful is he, then? Make up your mind, movie.

"Hulk level up between scenes!"

And another thing with The Hulk! Why does Hulk all of a sudden not go into an insane rage the second time he Hulks out? He was trying to kill Scarlett Johansson earlier, and now he's fighting alongside them and taking orders? What changed? Did I miss a line? All of a sudden he's totally cool, capable of taking orders, and totally knows who is on his side and who isn't? You just can't do that without explaining it! It seemed that Whedon realized that he wrote himself into a corner with Hulk, but said "screw it" and had him fighting with The Avengers at the end just because.

OH! Another thing!!! How in the hell did the mystical MacGuffin wind up on the roof of Tony Stark's building without him knowing? The dude is hardwired into everything on the freaking planet with his tech, yet his AI butler dropped the ball on his home security?! And you can't tell me they hacked his AI butler, because he's functioning perfectly throughout the entire affair.

Alright, alright I'm done with the plot holes. Besides, apart from the MacGuffin on the roof, none of those were really deal breakers for me. They were more like little annoyances. No, for me the real Listerine in the punchbowl were the characters themselves, and how they acted. Particularly the guy who was once one of the most awesome superheroes around, but has now become one of the most insufferable: Tony Stark.

"Hi, my name is Robert, but you can call me Chuckles the Clown."

Tony Stark is hands down the least interesting character in this film. He's a walking punchline. And no, that doesn't automatically make him awesome. That makes him a punchline. There's a difference. I seem to recall Tony being slightly less obnoxious with the amount of jokes and "Lookit me, I'm not taking this too seriously" lines in the other "Ironman" films. I mean, they were there, sure, but they seemed a bit more spaced out. In "The Avengers" it's like EVERY SINGLE LINE with this guy. If Tony Stark is on the screen, there can't be 12 seconds going by without a witty, snide comment with the appropriate amount of pause afterwords so the audience can laugh. Irritation and distraction are not powerful enough adjectives to describe the effect that had on me. And of course, he's probably the Avenger with the most screen time.

The far more interesting characters for me were Captain America and Thor. I found Captain America interesting because he was the man representing loyalty and faith in the system, something he fought and basically died for, but he gets thrown in a position of having to question that very loyalty and coming to terms with what the "right" thing to do really is, even if it means disobeying orders. It's an interesting bit of character development which lasts for about 5 minutes before an action scene starts, and when it's done he's made his decision. That's fine, but personally I would have liked to have seen it addressed maybe one more time, because it was a good angle for the character.

Now Thor I liked because of the connection he had with the villain. Loki being Thor's brother added a connection that the other characters couldn't hope to match. For that reason, the scenes between Thor and Loki are quite good and have far more impact on a dramatic level than when any of the other Avengers are fighting him. For everyone else it's just the Big Bad of the movie, but for Thor it's personal.

Loki also possess the power to turn into Michael Sheen.

Thor is also the only character that was given the exact proper amount of funny lines. That total ended up being maybe three. He's basically the complete antithesis of Tony Stark in that regard, since Tony had maybe three lines that were serious, and for that reason Thor was the only character that I actually found funny. When he said something humorous, it was unexpected, and to be perfectly honest, Chris Hemsworth had a FAR superior sense of comedic timing. The one joke I laughed at was Thor meekly mentioning that Loki is adopted when it's brought up that his brother killed a lot of people. That was pretty funny.

But YOU need to shut up, dude, before you wear out the love I have for you...

Speaking of shutting up, the absolute biggest problem I had with this flick was the unbelievable amount of talking going on. GOOD. GRAVY. I thought we were over this. Did I miss something? What have we been doing the last half decade? What were all those other movies about? You know, the FIVE Marvel films that were the lead-in to "The Avengers?"

I thought the point of those was so that we didn't need an hour and a half of talking in "The Avengers" movie. I thought in this movie, since we already knew everyone, they would simply form a team because of an evil that threatens the world, and a lot of stuff blows up and awesome superhero action awaits without having to bother with drama and petty bickering.

Boy was I wrong. Almost the entire first two acts of the film are devoted to the Avengers bickering and in-fighting with each other as they can't seem to come to the simple conclusion that they really need to work together otherwise they're all dead. Oh wow. That's fun. That's what I paid $10 to see: superheroes having a penis measuring contest. For that reason I found the first 2/3rd's of the movie to honestly be pretty darn boring, with the exception of an occasional brief action scene snapping me out of drifting off.

But shock of all shocks, once the third act comes along, "The Avengers" out of nowhere gets pretty freaking good. I'm not going to lie, the last act is outstanding. And although the action does have an annoying habit of flipping back and forth between "phenomenal" and "way-too-close-what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at-stop-shaking-the-camera," the ratio of amazing to confusing is severely skewed in the positive direction. The last 40 minutes or so of "The Avengers" is probably some of the best, most consistently exciting action I can recall from...well nearly any movie, really.

And that fact makes it just that much more frustrating for me when I realized that had this movie been about half an hour shorter, started at the third act, and just played out Loki's plan to a more severe outcome, "The Avengers" would have ROCKED. The alien invasion that is the third act should have happened by the half hour mark. Not the hour and forty minute mark. This should have been a movie entirely made up of The Avengers fighting back the alien horde. Not Tony Stark and Steve Rogers puffing their chests out at each other and setting a time and place to fight after school.

Most of the movie is The Avengers fighting each other rather than the bad guys.

I know people are going to come down hard on me for having these views, but I'm sorry. For the most part I found "The Avengers" to be boring, obnoxious and WAY too full of itself. And I blame every single bit of that on Joss Whedon, because that is the exact same reaction I've had to pretty much everything he's ever done.

And for those of you fanboys and fangirls ready to tear my head off over what you would probably call my "blasphemy," ask yourself a question, think about it seriously, and be honest:

"Did you really enjoy "The Avengers" on a objective level, or did you enjoy it simply because it's there?"

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Avengers" is not a bad movie. It's just not that great if you ask me. It's kind of boring, it takes way too long getting started, the plot never really solidifies, and most of the movie is superheroes being snarky jerks to each other. When it finally does pick up at the end, it's fantastic, which is the best redeeming quality for the film. Fanboys will worship it because that's what they do. For someone with their blinders off, I can say it's just "OK" at best. Recommended for a rental, or perhaps theaters after all the annoying diehards are done seeing it 15 times.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

I'm going to ruin Tom Cruise for you forever. And when I say "ruin" I'm not referring to what you would probably think of. Let's be honest, he needs little help in that department. But there are two very different sides to Tom Cruise. There is Tom Cruise The Person and Tom Cruise The Actor. Tom Cruise The Person has become a walking punchline with a weird nose and he probably gets his spiritual guidance from Captain Crunch, but the world loves Tom Cruise The Actor, which is obvious considering how utterly crazy Tom Cruise The Person can be and still maintain his alter-ego's massive fan-base. The dude still has crazy box-office draw, but he has always been a big star who is easy to watch for most people. Personally, I like Tom Cruise The Actor, but I'm going to ruin him for you all right now. You ready?

His teeth are off center. Rather severely.

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Just try and pay attention to his acting now. It's not possible. There will only be funky teeth. You're welcome.

I was a really big fan of the first "Mission: Impossible" from way back in 1996. That movie was the bomb and it still holds up today as one of the best action movies of the 90's, and possibly the most entertaining spy movie ever made outside of a Sean Connery Bond outing. Also, it had Jean Reno, which means that it's at least partly awesome by default.

The second movie was an abomination that still hurts me when I think back on it. Although if I'm being completely honest, there's only two things I remember about that piece of trash: Slow-motion doves and Ethan Hunt suddenly and inexplicably knowing kung-fu. Both of these stupid elements can be attributed to director John Woo, who is one of the worst things to happen to action films since Michael Bay. I think "overindulgent" is about .2% of the strength of the word needed to describe both of their styles, but where they differ is that John Woo uses doves flying in slow-motion and Mexican standoffs, whereas Michael Bay uses helicopters flying in slow-motion and wants to have sex with the U.S. Military. Subtle differences, I know. You kind of have to pay attention. Oh, and Michael Bay also has racism. Can't forget that.

ANYWAYS. "Mission: Impossible 3" was actually pretty good. It's another one that I don't have too clear a memory of, which is weird because it's the one I've seen most recently of the original trilogy. The only thing I really clearly remember is that Philip Seymor Hoffman would have been a much more threatening bad guy if he didn't look like a dude who should be running a Magic: The Gathering tournament. You can't make something that pasty and doughy scary. It's just not feasible, and having him fight Ethan Hunt at the end in hand to hand combat and lasting more than 25 milliseconds was a joke. Other than that it was a solid flick.

So now we come to "Mission: Impossible - We're Not Numbering Them Anymore For Some Stupid Reason." (Is that a rule now? Are movies not allowed to be numbered past 3?) I was looking forward to this one. It looked like a pretty fun romp despite the use of Eminem* in the trailer with that song of his that's been in every trailer for everything now. It also seemed that Simon Pegg was still in it, which I was all about. So yeah, why not?

*Oh geez, spellcheck didn't list "Eminem" as a misspelling. It's in the freaking dictionary now. Seriously?

Above: Tom Cruise in the facility where they keep all his crazy.

Well, turns out that "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" was indeed a fun time. It was a blast, an action packed thrill ride, a non-stop rollercoaster and all those other stupid buzzwords that are slapped on the cover-art of the DVDs. Gah. I feel dirty writing those phrases, but the fact remains that it was a good time which was very much what you would expect from a (not disappointing) big summer blockbuster, except that it came out in winter. Out of all the other films, this one came closest to capturing the awesomeness of the original. It's not as good as that one was, mind you, but it came pretty close.

I think something that "Ghost Protocol" has that the other sequels were lacking in somewhat was gadgets. Part of the fun of "Mission: Impossible" and super-spy movies in general are all the cool toys they get and how they use them. It's kind of like Batman and his utility belt. You have no idea what he has in there, or indeed how he ever packed for all these contingencies, but whenever he whips out a new gadget you're just forced to sit back and say "Of course he had that. He's Batman." It's the same with "Mission: Impossible," but the other sequels didn't give us too many new things. "Ghost Protocol" gives us nifty contact lenses that function like a personal HUD (complete with camera!) magnetic gloves without the magnets, numerous insta-forging devices, a levitation suit, and an absolutely ridiculous "make you invisible" projector screen which has to be seen to be truly understood. It's crazy, but the series definitely needed some super-gizmos again. It just made it far more fun.

"No, Pandora! I DON'T want you to play "Sandstorm!" I don't care how funny it would be!"

Another plus the film had going for it was Simon Pegg. I'm a big fan of his, in fact I consider him to be one of the 3 funniest people on the planet, and I was hoping they would have him in a more prominent role this time out, since he was pretty underused in his introduction in "Mission: Impossible 3." Fortunately I was right, and Simon does have a pretty prominent role in this film, and does more than just provide computer support and provide quips over a headset. And, to the filmmakers credit, they never have him get goofy. You see, "Pirates of The Caribbean?" You can have comic relief with some dignity! Imagine that!

(On a side note, however, I am still baffled how they could get Sawyer from "Lost" in this movie and not get one single funny, smart-ass remark out of him. That just blows my mind.)

The plot is honestly nothing too incredibly special, but then again, it seldom is in movies like this. Bad guys have hurty thing, good guys need to get hurty thing, good guys go all over the world and do outlandish things with spy tech to retrieve hurty thing from bad guys. It's not brain surgery over here. Like I mentioned earlier, that's not why you go to these movies - you go to see them use the cool gadgets.

However, "Ghost Protocol" did something interesting because (slight spoiler alert) Ethan Hunt and team fail every single mission in this movie, apart from the opening mission and the last, final battle. Every other mission in the movie goes bad by the end, and it's really incredible that they succeeded all things considered, because they were not sporting a good batting average.

"Hey Ethan! As long as I've got your attention here, you think I could get a raise, boss?"

There are set pieces in this film which rank among the very best that (the admittedly somewhat paltry) 2011 had to offer. From an exciting and often times funny opening prison escape set to Dean Martin to the much-touted Dubai skyscraper climb which was almost unbearably intense, "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" may have just saved a series which was looking to be pretty much washed up.

THE BOTTOM LINE - A really fun time, and the best of the series since the first one. Will most likely make my Top 10 of 2011...somewhere in the back half.