Impossibly pleasurable

MANILA, Philippines - For good or bad, the Metro Manila Film Festival is fast hurtling towards us to shove aside everything Hollywood for our yearly orgy of everything and anything made in the Philippines.

With that, here’s a bit of unsolicited advice: If there’s one movie you need to watch before the MMFF, then it should be Mr. Tom Cruise’s fourth instalment of the Mission Impossible franchise. Ditch Bella and Edward; Hunt’s infinitely more fun — and, surprisingly, substantially younger than the Cullens. Ha-ha. Enough with the brooding vampires; it’s time to catch up with our favorite agent not named James Bond.

We find Ethan Hunt (Cruise) languishing (relaxing?) in a tightly guarded Budapest jail just a few moments before he is sprung by a grand total of two IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agents. Hunt then fights his way through a platoon of jail guards and fights his way to freedom — with a friend in tow, no less. “Light the fuse,” he says to agent Jane Carter (Paula Patton), a fitting nod to the original television franchise. Nobody said this was Mission Manageable.

Besides, the IMF doesn’t do neighborhood crisis solving. Hunt’s pay scale is considerably higher than your average barangay tanod. I mean, you don’t call in the SWAT team to nab a convenience store shoplifter, right? An impossible troop begets an impossibly difficult assignment. And how much more urgent (and global in nature) can you get than trying to intercept launch codes for Russian nuclear weapons? And making their mission more, well, impossible: The entire IMF organization has been disavowed. “Ghost protocol” is in place. Oh, snap.

That’s the way Ethan Hunt likes it. That’s the way we like it. Consistent with expectations, too, M:I 4 takes us to exotic locations like Moscow and Mumbai, and highlights the standard sweeping shots of said exotic locations to drive home a critical message: This is a lavish Hollywood creation, budgets bedarned!

So appreciate the production values as Mr. Hunt and company are unceremoniously dropped amid goose-stepping soldiers, sandstorms, arms dealers, and one killer supermodel (or is it supermodel killer?), among other niceties. The complement of gadgets and gismos is also up to date. By gosh, we can’t have Hunt running around wielding a 3210. He needs his smart phone and tablet computer; and we need to believe the IMF has some pretty neat stuff in the company cupboard aside from an espresso maker. And I’m pretty sure BMW concept cars don’t come in a standard company car plan.

While on the subject of needs, our Mr. Hunt also calls for a competent, interesting set of colleague, of course. There’s the aforementioned Jane Carter, William “the analyst with a secret” Brandt (played by the great Jeremy Renner), and the geeky computer guy-cum-comic relief Benji Dunn (superbly given life by British comedian Simon Pegg). If you must know, Pegg left me in stitches in Shaun of the Dead and Run Fat Boy Run.

Again, do not delay in watching M:I 4. An adventure this grand is meant to be seen on the big screen. How can you resist? In the words of Hunt, this team is unprepared, in the dark, and disavowed. Pretty good chances, don’t you think? A compelling movie to reward yourself with for another year soon to be in the books. Dan-dan-dan-dan-dan.