That's it. Next time I get to seduce the rich guy.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to explain to me why everyone likes this movie. Your explanation should be overly long and complicated and have gadgets that while awesome, really would only work in one situation (I'm looking at you, Mars rover). Oh, and during your explanation, I want you to go to three different countries, simply because you can. Failure to complete your mission simply means that you are reasonably intelligent and attractive. Yes, you must be sexy to attempt any of this.

I rarely make guarantees. Last night, I promised my sister that she would enjoy Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. She hadn't seen any of the first three, but I swore to her it wouldn't matter. It's just going to be kick ass spy stuff and explosions. She called Father Flem, and we rappelled to our local cinema.

A few things first. I really like Tom Cruise. I do. I have enjoyed, to varying degrees, the first three Mission: Impossible movies. So don't think my hatred of this is based on any irrational anti-Scientology nonsense or whatever. This movie just isn't good. It's not flat-out awful, no, but it is definitely not worth the hype. I might have had a decent time if this was critically panned, but 93% fresh? Ridiculous. Almost makes me second guess myself. Almost. But then I remembered thinking that if I had had a watch (do they still make those anymore?) I would've checked it a hundred times. Or, once every time things started to drag between action sequences.

This scene, especially when he first steps out, owned

Yaaaay!

• Some of the expert gadgetry was ridiculously awesome. The perspective-tracking-screen-thing was probably worth at least half of my admission price. The hole-maker was pretty righteous, too. Lastly, mini-retina-document-manipulater was super badass. Flem almost peed himself out of pure joy.
• Cleavage! (a) I'm a deadly assassin. My sweet rack is the heaven you experience before I send you to straight to Hell. (b) I'm an IMF agent. I'm rocking a sidearm and some sideboob. Both equally detrimental to your existence as generic foreigner scum and/or douchebag.
• Shaun! Simon Pegg is perfectly cast as the nerdy voice of reason. Can somebody get me some Nick Frost while we're at it? Or zombie Emilio Estevez? (or actual Charlie Sheen?)
• And yes, some of the action was very cool. The whole scene in Dubai was fantastic, really. Absurd? Very. But still pretty excellent. Garage Battle was solid, too. As was Russian Prison Escape! But...

I'm gonna hang by the bar. Put out the vibe.

Boooooooo!

• ...the movie dragged like crazy. Honestly, I felt like I was at the dentist. Good or bad, I just wanted to get out of there. With a new toothbrush.
• Opening credits! Fuse = cool. Showing clips of the impending movie = not.
• Floating corpse flare? Glad Renner asked about that one.
• Sandstorm? Even the Aliens-esque tracking sequence didn't make that any less lame. Oh, are the shopkeepers of Dubai still really surprised by these storms you can see fifty miles away? Might want to put the umbrellas away, fellas.
• Secret train lab. Those three words are bad enough, but the retinal scanner sequence to enter it is soul crushingly worse. Almost as bad as when he goes back to the pay phone. He leaves their spy van to go to a pay phone. Maybe that's an homage or something, but it made me want to cry. A lot.
• Metal armor that allows you to hover in a giant cave server. I'm going to pretend that entire scene never happened. When he dodges the flying shards by doing a cannonball? Dear Lord.
• The ending. L.A., not Seattle. Seattle was cool. Loved the minutes spent with Marcellus Wallace. But L.A.? Would've been cooler if it went all T3: Rise of the Machines.
• And, um, everything else.