Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

Ghost Protocol follows Ethan Hunt and a small team who must clear the IMF's name after a bombing at the Kremlin leaves the agency disavowed by the US President. The film opens in Budapest, where an IMF agent is killed by an assassin who steals Russian nuclear launch codes. Hunt is then broken out of a Moscow prison by agent Jane Carter and tech specialist Benji Dunn, and the three of them break into the Kremlin to find out who a figure called Cobalt really is.

The plan goes badly wrong. Cobalt exposes the team and blows up part of the building, Russia blames Hunt, and the US President invokes Ghost Protocol, the order under which the IMF is shut down and denied by its own government. (Think of a company that cuts off your email, your expense account and your parking pass on the same afternoon.) From that point Hunt has no agency, no sanctioned backup and a very short list of people he can trust.

If you are working through the series, the guide to mission impossible movies in order shows how this setup follows the third film.

Hunt clears the IMF by stopping Kurt Hendricks, a nuclear strategist who wants to provoke a war between the US and Russia, from landing a missile on San Francisco. After the Kremlin bombing, Russian security officer Anatoly Sidorov seizes Hunt, but Hunt escapes. The IMF Secretary then tells him that Cobalt is Hendricks, and the Secretary is killed in an ambush straight afterward. That leaves Hunt with a small, unsanctioned team: Jane, Benji and the analyst William Brandt.

The first stop is Dubai, where the team goes after the sale of the launch codes and Hunt climbs the outside of the Burj Khalifa as part of the plan. The deal falls apart, the assassin Moreau is killed, and Hendricks escapes in a sandstorm, wearing a mask to pass as one of his own men.

The trail then leads to Mumbai, where Hendricks plans to use an old Soviet satellite owned by the media tycoon Brij Nath to send a launch order. Jane gets the override code from Nath, and the team races to the broadcast station. By then Hendricks has already ordered a Russian submarine to fire a missile at San Francisco.

The finale is a straight race against the clock. Hunt fights Hendricks, who jumps to his death holding the launch device. Hunt recovers the device and disables the missile just before it hits. Sidorov learns that the IMF was not responsible for the Kremlin attack, and the agency is reinstated.

Ghost Protocol premiered on December 7, 2011 in Dubai, as the opening night film of the 8th Dubai International Film Festival, with a red carpet at Madinat Jumeirah. Tom Cruise attended, and the promotion included a photocall at the Burj Khalifa, the tower the film is known for.

The theatrical rollout began in Australia, where advance screenings ran on December 14 and the wide release followed on December 15, 2011. The US release came on December 16, 2011, and the UK followed on December 26, 2011, according to Box Office Mojo.

If you are checking the parents guide, the film is rated PG-13 in the US, 12A in the UK and M in Australia. It runs 133 minutes according to TMDB. The film sits fourth in both release order and chronological order, and the mission impossible timeline shows how it connects to the rest.

The ending of Ghost Protocol does two jobs: it finishes the Hendricks plot by stopping the San Francisco missile, and it reopens Hunt's personal story by revealing that Julia is alive. Hendricks dies after falling from a ledge, and Hunt stops the missile with seconds to spare. Because Sidorov learns the IMF was not behind the Kremlin attack, the agency is cleared and brought back, which undoes the disavowal that drove the whole film.

The last scene moves to Seattle. Hunt meets his team for a new assignment, and Brandt reveals that Hunt's wife Julia is alive. Hunt sees her from a distance, she smiles at him, and Luther Stickell hands him a new mission briefing. In my opinion, that is one of the quietest closing beats in the series: no stunt and no chase, only a look across a gap. It works because Julia is the character Hunt was engaged to in mission impossible 3, a nurse who did not know his real job, so the smile carries the weight of that earlier film.

It could be argued that this beat matters more than the missile, since Julia returns later: Michelle Monaghan is credited as Julia again in mission impossible fallout. Perhaps the more practical point is that the reset is short lived. In mission impossible rogue nation, CIA director Alan Hunley convinces a Senate committee to shut the IMF down and fold it into the CIA, which leaves Hunt a fugitive again. So, Ghost Protocol clears the agency's name, and the next film takes it away once more. For the character threads, see julia mission impossible.

Ghost Protocol was filmed across Europe, the Middle East and India, and the Burj Khalifa climb in Dubai is the location most people ask about. Tom Cruise performed that climb himself, secured by cables that were digitally removed in post production, according to Entertainment Tonight.

Here is where the production worked, in the order the story reaches each place:

• Budapest, Hungary: the opening sequence.
• Prague, Czech Republic: a former prison near the city stood in for the Moscow prison used in the escape.
• Moscow, Russia.
• Vancouver, Canada: studio interiors at Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios.
• Dubai, UAE: the Burj Khalifa climb, Dubai Creek and other locations.
• Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, India: the Mumbai sections of the story.

The Prague prison is a good example of how a production saves time: a real former prison played the Moscow jail for the escape. For the stunts across the series, see mission impossible stunts.

The best trivia about Ghost Protocol is how it was made: a first time live action director, a script that was rewritten and a real climb up the world's tallest building.

• Brad Bird, previously known for animated films such as The Incredibles and Ratatouille, made his live action debut directing this film.
• The first screenplay was by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec. Christopher McQuarrie later rewrote it without a screenplay credit.
• About 30 minutes of the film was shot with IMAX cameras, with Bird preferring IMAX to 3D.
• Tom Cruise performed the Burj Khalifa climb himself. He was secured by cables, which were digitally removed in post production.
• Principal photography ran from October 2010 to March 19, 2011.
• The film was the opening night premiere of the 8th Dubai International Film Festival on December 7, 2011.
• The Moscow prison escape was shot in a former prison near Prague.

On the business side, Ghost Protocol finished with $209 million domestic and $485 million international, and it stayed the highest grossing film in the series until mission impossible fallout. The mission impossible box office page has every film side by side.