Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Personally, I loved JJ Abrams’ third Mission Impossible and felt like it was a perfect send-off for the franchise. Not as connvoluted as Brian De Palma’s espionage-y original and legions ahead of John Woo’s slow-mo-obsessed, often-ludicrous sequel, M:I:III was an exciting mix of spy thrills and Alias-like plotting with the Cruister running (and running and running) himself into his perfect farewell to the action scene.

But here we are regardless, with a fourth instalment, the interestingly-titled Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (because nowadays, it’s not a real movie unless its got a sub-title). Enough waffle? Okay, here’s the trailer:

As I said earlier, hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

At first I was reasonably excited about the prospect of Pixar man Brad Bird (The Incredibles) taking over from JJ, and having seen this footage, he still feels like a good choice.

But yet, while the trailer looks like a semi-exciting mix of elements we’ve seen before (the IMF team being disavowed, massive building acrobatics,  Tom running with T-1000 levels of conviction), it doesn’t really feel like anything new or fresh that we haven’t seen from the franchise already.

Saying that, both Jeremy Renner and Tom Wilkinson look like good fits for the IMF world (what is it with the ever-revolving MI casts? Do the bossmen never fancy returning?), while TC in full Ethan Hunt mode is always great to watch. Plus, whilst undoubtedly familiar to last time’s big stunt, his newest death-defying, do-it-yourself-despite-being-a-massive-star skyscraper fulcrum is something to look forward to…

So, all in all, I’m waiting for the real full-length trailer to really decide (remember, this is only the teaser), which should hopefully show us more of Lost‘s Josh Holloway who essentially feels like a hidden subliminal message here.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to leave a comment below. Quickly mind, this blog post will self destruct…