Believe you me: the Burj Al-Khaleefa scene will knock your socks off. It goes like this: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has to disable the security system at the Burj and to do this he has to scale the world’s tallest building from the outside with a set of malfunctioning adhesive gloves.

The vertigo-inducing high-concept sequence, perhaps the key element of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’s marketing campaign, is a dizzying pulse-throbbing adventure by itself.

But is one scene really enough to put the film into the list of one of the most entertaining films of 2011? No, and that is precisely why Ghost Protocol is custom-built around the idea that more is better.

Within minutes of opening, Ethan Hunt is reclaimed from a prison in Berlin and is flung headfirst into a series of superficially conceived globetrotting missions. His backup is a hampered party of two: Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) — the returning tech-geek from MI-III. A little later, the troupe adds William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), a bedeviled intelligence analyst.

MI has always been about Cruise as Ethan, often on the run and as a producer always employing the crème de la crème in direction. Five years down the line, Ghost Protocol, helmed by Pixar alumni Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) is the perfect conduit for his re-introduction.

Think of Ghost Protocol as 101 in spectacle-making: strip the team off its resources, brand them as rogues and let it rip. The kinetic exhilaration turns global between Russia, (where the Impossible Mission Force is disowned by the United States Government after the Kremlin is bombed), Dubai and Mumbai (a wasted stop by the way), before a nuclear terrorist strike machinated by Russian extremist Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) takes flight to blow away a US city.

While the plot is one-dimensional the framework is extraordinarily acute. By the Mumbai endgame (after a small detour over a cocky Anil Kapoor who plays a lusty playboy magnate) at the automated car park, Ghost Protocol drains its bolster.

Still, the run up to it is fantabulous, thanks to the mild-mannered ingenious of Bird and writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (TV’s Alias) there’s still ample leeway for the characters to create a semblance of humanity.

Ghost Protocol splits its emotional immensity three-ways between Ethan, Jane and Brandt. Ethan’s wife is dead, Jane loses her IMF-agent beau at the beginning, and Brandt opens up an unexpected twist. Their shared woes are a winning facet, and it detracts from the singularity of Cruise’s star power. By itself, Ghost Protocol is more than capable of re-jolting Cruise’s career.

Second opinion

The biggest star in the world, Tom Cruise, has been getting a little down time in popularity recently because of some personal and career misadventures. Now, nearing 50, Cruise returns with his top — and only — event franchise Mission: Impossible. With Ghost Protocol he quite literally blows the cobwebs off the series.

In a race to appeal to the tweeting generation Cruise runs harder, becomes ripped with muscle and loses his trademark smile  until the end of the film. For him it’s more important to make this work and despite the obstacles, he makes it work — for both him and Hunt.

Brad Bird has a knack for action and with Ghost Protocol — his first live action film — he does it with no less craftiness or velocity. He keeps the action close to his characters and it never feels impersonal or uninteresting.

Written by the duo team of Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (graduates of J.J. Abrams’ Alias, the director of M:I-III, who is producing Ghost Protocol with Cruise), the screenplay maintains a semblance of light heartedness amid the world-ending scenario.

Ghost Protocol is a visual stunner and a sure fire entertainer. — Farheen Jawaid