tom cruise – Nils van der Linden

‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’ scales new heights

Good thing IMF agent Ethan Hunt isn’t afraid of heights. He’s already leapt from a speeding train onto a helicopter inside the Channel Tunnel. He’s gone free-climbing up a 600-metre cliff-face. He’s leapt between Shaghai’s skyscrapers. So scaling the outside of the world’s highest building, Dubai’s 163-storey Bhurj Khalifa, without ropes, is all in a day’s work.

The epic action centrepiece of ‘Ghost Protocol’ easily surpasses its predecessors in terms of sheer scale and white knuckle thrills. But – with comedian Simon Pegg in tow to explain how Hunt’s adhesive climbing gloves work (“blue means glue, red means dead”) – the sequence also highlights the differences between the ‘Mission: Impossible’ films.

‘Valkyrie’ soars

Tom Cruise has played dreamy barman, hotshot secret agent man, loveable fighter pilot, teen underwear model, money-showing sports agent, cop-of-the-future, multiple kind-hearted lawyers, saviour of the universe, p*ssy-obsessed motivational speaker, self-righteous hitman, wannabe Samurai warrior, lisping girly vampire, and a racing driver called Cole Trickle.

But (with the possible exception of that disgusting bald guy who shook his ass through ‘Tropic Thunder’), he’s really only ever played Tom Cruise. ‘Valkyrie’ is little different. No German accent. No Oscar-baiting attempt at genuine transformation into a real-life historical figure. Just Tom Cruise in an eye patch and Nazi uniform. This is clearly no biopic with the accompanying attention to detail, or even the truth.