Blu-ray Movie Reviews

The trailer for this movie showed a lot of promise and the star power of Mark Wahlberg had me eagerly awaiting its release on Blu-ray. Sadly, the screenplay is a predictable mess, the acting inconsistent, and the twists and turns have been done countless times in Hollywood that the ending couldn't come soon enough. At least the AVC video encode is loaded with detail and other than some occasional black crush, there isn't much to complain about, but the best aspect of the entire production is the fantastic DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack the features plenty of frequency response and some pinpoint imaging.

When the first Mission: Impossible hit the theaters in 1996, I found the story to be a little confusing and flat. Subsequent viewings showed it to be a movie that got better with time. Unfortunately, the sequel in 2000 was a dud—the action was great, but the screenplay wasn't anything to brag about. Lucky for us, J.J. Abrams took over in 2006 and delivered the strongest movie in Mission: Impossible III with end-to-end action and a compelling story. The fourth installment is produced by Abrams and directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles), who shows he can deliver a live-action film with fantastic pacing and intriguing characters. I guess Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is just like fine wine—he gets better with age. Not only do I think this is the best film of the bunch, the audio and video quality are demo-worthy with fabulous detail, rich colors, and one of the most engaging Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtracks available on Blu-ray.