"Wait, you're what?"

Paramount Pictures U.K. recently invited a group of journalists and people who are easily impressed to a screening of exclusive footage from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol so they could show off all the neat-o cameras that they used. I’m sure many a monocle shattered on the floor that night.

Director Brad Bird boasted that the fourth installment of the watch-Tom-Cruise-sprint-like-a-ninny spy franchise marked the first time that an action film like this had been made for IMAX. Then someone presented him with a shiny new trophy and a whole batch of cookies before crowning him the most amazing man in the world.

Other footage shown included a chase scene amid a desert sandstorm, Cruise’s Hunt character scaling the world’s tallest building in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa building and Cruise and Renner playing opposite Tom Wilkinson as he learns of his mission.

It is set to roll out globally Dec. 26 this year and will be seen in hand-picked large format screens in the U.K. including IMAX, VUE Xtreme, Empire Impact and Cineworld Superscreen from Dec. 21.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

After the jump, you can check out the extended international trailer for MI4, as it features most of these scenes and then you can high five your bro and have a push-up contest.

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(click to enlarge)

Besides Ethan Hunt being the only international superspy who always looks like he just walked out of a snazzy Banana Republic catalogue, the main thing I notice about this poster is how good Paula Patton’s boobs look. I think it’d be more effective if it had “NO BACKUP, NO PLAN, NO CHOICE, NO PANTIES,” with the NO PANTIES over Paula Patton and her awesome jugs. Then again, “NO CONTACT” is the same sign they have in strip clubs, so perhaps that’s a fitting thing to write on her boobs. Playing it safe, really.

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"So help me God I will shoot the next person who says 'Valkyrie'"

The theatrical trailer for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was released exclusively to Yahoo! yesterday, and I can say with absolutely no equivocation that this will be an action movie. I can tell because during the trailer’s two and a half minutes, a bunch of things explode and at one point Tom Cruise jumps out a window and runs down the side of a building like he’s in a Mountain Dew commercial. Yup, this is definitely going to be an action movie. What can I say, I have a nose for these kinds of things.

In all honesty, even though there’s not much to the trailer beyond Tom Cruise being EXTREME and Jeremy Renner making that “I am a serious and possibly evil person in this movie” face that he made during The Town, I’m going to give this movie the benefit of the doubt. Mainly because it was directed by Brad Bird, who directed The Incredibles, and holy freak you guys I love that movie. So even though I’m kind of over Tom Cruise as a leading man, and I’m generally not a fan of sequels on sequels on sequels, I will at the very least go into this with an open mind. This is very big of me and should be recognized as such in the comments.

Because I have nothing else to add by way of analysis, I will now make a list of other things “Ghost Protocol” sounds like to me:

- Something Ghostface Killah would shout during the first fifteen seconds of a song before he starts rapping.
- One of those shows on the weird digital cable channels in the low-100s where psychics or whatever try to communicate with and/or hunt spirits.
- Something Shaggy and Scooby would initiate before running off, hiding, and eating really big sandwiches.
- The name of a band Pitchfork would give a stellar review to despite the band forming only 48 hours earlier.
- A list of elaborate rules and regulations you get before you are allowed to go haunt people, like “No hiding in bathrooms and peeking at ladies in the shower” and other total bummers.
- Some sort of weird sex move on Urban Dictionary that is so disturbing it makes you feel as though the noble experiment we call mankind has officially failed.
- A cool cereal with marshmallows and stuff.

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Werner Herzog is one our favorite characters around these parts, so it only follows that someone would want to put that character in a movie. Paramount has announced that Herzog will play the villain in One Shot, written and directed by Chris McQuarrie (Usual Suspects, Valkyrie), based on the book series by Lee Child. I hope he’s only doing this to finance a documentary about blind pygmies of the Serengeti, who create beautiful poetry and then fight to the death with yak bones.

The book series by Lee Child follows Jack Reacher, a former military policeman turned drifter. In “One Shot,” Reacher investigates the case of a sniper accused of murdering five people before being captured.
Herzog will play The Zec, an ex-prisoner of war who arranges and stages the killing and is the head of the conspiracy. “One Shot” is the first major acting role for the German auteur, aside from cameos and an occasional voice-over work on “The Simpsons.”

Said Herzog on why he was interested in working with Tom Cruise, “I haff been eenterested een za giggling dwarf ever seence I shoot ‘Even Dwarf Started Schmall’ een 1970, about za laughing dwarf oo takeower za zoo oont crucify za monkey. I see za parallel seetoation viss Tom Cruise, ollyvood, oont Scientologist. Oont ven I look eento za eyes uff za scientologeest, I see nuzzink. Zee abyss. Za cold eendifference uff nature. Vair some people see za human soul, I see styleests, publiceests, oont Schtarbucks fockeeng coffeez. Behind za eyes ist nuzzinkness, oont it is poetry. Eez beautiful.”

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When your movie includes Tom Cruise dangling from world’s tallest building (Tom Cruise is that spec next to the helicopter), it seems like a no-brainer to include that in the marketing material. But so far, Paramount seemed content to play up other aspects of Mission Impossible IV (“GHOST PROTOCOL!”), such as Tom Cruise wearing a hoodie, or Tom Cruise wearing white pants. (“This summer… Justice shops at Banana Express!”). Finally they’ve hit us with the money shot in the newest poster, which shows Tom Cruise climbing the 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa building in Dubai. So big ups to Tom for having the massive balls it took to do this, even if he is wearing capri pants. Or are those pedal pushers? I confess I’m a little rusty in my three-quarter length pants vocabulary. In any case, it opens December 21st.

“Must… keep… climbing. Too many… gays down there…”

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