Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol arrives with high hopes that its director Brad Bird, making his live action debut, will re-energize the franchise with some of the visual elan he’s brought to his animated films such as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. But it pains somewhat to say that his transition to the world of flesh-and-blood beings isn’t quite as distinctive and stylish as one would hope; Ghost Protocol stays closer to the slick, safe, well-oiled anonymity of J.J. Abrams’ third film, rather than the unmistakable auteurism of Brian DePalma’s initial and John Woo’s second entry in the series. If anything, Bird’s film might be the most preposterous of the lot, featuring some truly silly high-tech gadgetry and far-fetched scenarios that push our suspension of disbelief to breaking point. Sometimes it works, as in the much-ballyhooed scene where Cruise climbs the Burj Khalifa using a pair of sticky Spider-Man gloves. And the multi-levelled automated car park fight towards the end is kinda neat, combining the playfulness of Pixar slapstick with the added dimension of human brutality. But the film peaks much too early, and there are things here that are over-the-top even by M:I standards, particularly its race-against-time climax where you’ll find Jeremy Renner levitating while Paula Patton turns Anil Kapoor into a drooling puppy.