Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) ****

What can I say? I loved this latest instalment of the Impossible series!

I was literally on the edge of my seat for the majority of it and laughing my bum off for the rest!  

Tom Cruise still has it as Ethan Hunt and Ghost Protocol proves it.

Joining him on this most recent mission are Simon Pegg's Benji, Paula Patton's Jane Carter and slightly later on Jeremy Renner's Brandt.  They're up against the loony Michael Nyqvist's terrorist Hendricks.  He is a complete headcase whose warped sense of bringing about world peace involves bringing about a nuclear war.

Unfortunately for the IMF team, Hendricks is an extremely intelligent headcase who's always one step ahead of them.  

Hendricks frames the team for a destructive attack on the Kremlin, leaving the President to invoke Ghost Protocol.  So basically, they're on their own, with no back up as IMF "never" existed.  From here on, it just gets crazier as Hunt leads his team on a death-defying race to stop Hendricks from unleashing Armageddon.  Cue action packed sequences with Hunt doing most of the death defying bits.  One of the most breath-taking scenes occurs in Dubai.  I literally held my breath and almost fell off my seat.

Jeremy Renner is the twist.  Spoiler alert!

I spent half the movie shaking my head every time he showed up, asking myself, why on Earth would they cast Renner as just a geek when he clearly had the presence of so much more i.e. on par with Cruise’s Agent Hunt.  Although he could be highly amusing bouncing off the hysterical Pegg.  In short, they complemented each other rather well.  And when we found out Renner’s Brandt is not just a geek, it gets more exciting and increasingly funny as Benji and Brandt’s respective geek and action jock enter into their own action escapade.

Let’s not forget Paula Patton’s Agent Carter.  She has a personal mission of her own.  Once she has taken care of business, she’s off to deal with the side-splittingly creepy, Brij Nath (Bollywood’s very own Anil Kapoor).

All this leads to the ultimate fight scenes.  That’s right, there are two of them at the same time!

I’ll say this, I’d love Tom Cruise to continue with the Impossible missions.  And the way Ghost Protocol ended, it’s perfect for another sequel!  One that I insist must include Pegg and Renner (or at least Pegg, Renner’s rising star might mean he’s to busy to play side-kick)!

And my only gripe?  Yes, I know it’s petty and childish, but I would have loved more of Josh Holloway.  Remember him from Lost (he played the swoon-worthy Sawyer)? Well, in the short time we had him, he proved that he is capable of handling an action movie.  Maybe he should get his own… just a thought.

New Year's Eve (2011) **

I don't know where to begin with this... atrocity?  That's the first descriptive word that comes to mind.
Gary Marshall, who usually delivers excellent chick flicks, has for some reason decided to punish us with this... thing.  A very forced, not very funny (generally speaking) and occasionally excruciating thing.  There were times where I had to close my eyes really tight and pretend I was somewhere else (my preference was Immortals-verse) mostly when Lea Michele was on screen.  I especially cannot stand her face when she sings.

So, for those of you that loved (or just liked in my case) Valentine's Day, the returning actors and actresses play completely different roles.  This offering has nothing to do with Valentine's Day.

I'll start with the stories/characters I hated/disliked the most.

Ashton Kutcher's depressed, New Year's hater, gets stuck in an elevator with Lea Michele.  So any excuse for Lea Michele to sing.  Boring! Unless you are a Glee fan that is... in which case *thumbs up* awesome!

Hilary Swank almost screws up New Year's for the entire world by not dropping "the ball!"
I just think Swank is suited to the serious roles/movies and she excels at that during the more serious aspects of her story.  Otherwise, it just looks like she's constipated most of the time.  She cannot do airy, sweet roles.

Katherine Heigl is messing with Jon Bon Jovi's head.  He had apparently dumped her the previous New Year's Eve.  And that's all I have to say about that.

Elsewhere, Sarah Jessica Parker is trying to stop her rebellious teen (Abigail Breslin) from attending the New Year's event in New York City alone.  Ok, that last one was a good story, had they just left SJP there.

Josh Duhammel (who really should have been paired with his When in Rome co-star, Kristen Bell.  It's a travesty she wasn't in it.  Would have enjoyed it a lot more.) is contemplating whether to meet last year's mystery lady.

Now for my likes / favourites.  Robert DeNiro was sweet, sad and just beautiful especially as his cancer riddled character deteriorated.  Keep the tissues handy for this one.

The excellent Michelle Pfeiffer is working to honour every last one of her previous resolutions with the aid of the increasingly talented Zac Effron (never thought I'd say that!), both of whom, hilariously stay in character throughout the outtakes.

The pregnancy story involves two expecting couples.  One couple is played by Jessica Biel and Seth Meyers. And the other is played by the hilarious Til Schweiger and Sarah Paulson.  Both continuously harass Carla Gugino to induce the births of their children to coincide with the New Year, so that they can win some cash.
Cue insanity... which Til Schweiger excels at.

Speaking of fun crazy... Sofia Vergara with a little help from a very Indian Russell Peters steals the entire movie whenever they deign to let her show up, completely upstaging both Heigl and Jon Bon Jovi.  She made me fall in love with her!

And finally, our Gary Marshall favourites.  Hector Elizondo and Larry Miller... both hysterical and both cruelly relegated to the background.  In fact, some of the best characters were relegated to just that.  Which is ridiculous as they were the ones that provided the most warmth and laughter.

So folks, if you want to waste your money, go ahead and watch.  Or, if you have patience and still want to waste your time, wait until it's shown on tv.

Arthur Christmas (2011) ***

Arthur Christmas, if you haven’t guessed (i.e. if you live under a very large rock) is definitely for children and the family.  Of course, if you happen to be like me, having an inner child that never grows up and loves Christmas, you’ll enjoy this.

It’s premise is simple enough.  Santa has forgotten a child from his list! And a nice child at that too!

Santa, being Malcolm Christmas (Jim Broadbent), descendant of St. Nicholas.

The current Santa is getting on a bit, so he relies on his eldest son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), whom one would assume was once trained by the military… and a grumpy puss.  Steve is also next in line to be Santa, once the current one retires… or so Steve hopes.  Santa, on the other hand may have other ideas.

Steve’s idea of a sleigh is what one can only describe as a giant red spaceship, the aptly named S-1 (does that stand for Santa or Steve, I wonder?).  The giant red spaceship, sorry, S-1 is in turn navigated by an insane number of elves.

Back to the story, Steve doesn’t care Santa has forgotten a child, after all, it is only one child out of billions.  So he convinces Santa to ignore it and go to sleep. 

So it’s up to Santa’s youngest son – Arthur (James McAvoy) to save Christmas for one special little girl – Gwen.  Arthur is the butt of everyone’s jokes.  He’s clumsy, gets in the way and just cares too much.  He also happens to be the one replying to all the children’s letters.  And he hero-worships his father.  Which basically means he’ll never succeed right?  Especially when he has his lunatic Grandfather – GrandSanta (a hysterical, scene stealing Bill Nighy), an elf specialising in wrapping – Briony (Ashley Jensen) and the descendents of the original Reindeers (dunb, but beautiful creatures) helping him. Oh, I forgot Evie, the real sleigh (in my opinion at least).

And they have to achieve this all in secret before little Gwen wakes!

Will Arthur save Christmas for one little girl?  

Will Santa retire?  

Will Steve inherit the family business? 

Or will GrandSanta rule the day once more, along with his beloved Evie?

You'll have to watch and see.