Sep 26, 2011

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Poster


This may well be the worst spy movie poster I've ever seen. There have probably been worse, but none comes readily to mind in the face of this hoodied Tom Cruise face. Everything about this is awful, from the generally sloppy design and layout, to the meaningless numbers muddying up that boring central image (which in themselves recall the much cooler Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy posters, in which Smiley's face is actually made up of code numbers), to the weirdly Photoshopped M:I fuse to the fact that the brand itself and main selling point of this movie, "Mission: Impossible" is diminished to the point of obscurity by the words "Ghost Protocol," a phrase which has no resonance with moviegoers. And what was all that business about supposedly bringing in Jeremy Renner to take the torch from Tom Cruise because the studio no longer felt that Cruise alone could carry the franchise? I don't see Renner anywhere on this poster. Just Cruise in an ill-advised hoodie. Shouldn't he be running from an explosion or something? Isn't that usually what he does? I saw this for the first time in a movie theater this weekend, so I knew it was real, but if I'd first seen it online at The Hollywood Reporter I think I would have assumed it was bad fan art. Luckily, no crappy poster can diminish my excitement for this film, which I'm still hoping will restore the whole team dynamic of the TV show and prove to be the best Mission: Impossible movie yet!

1 comment:

Bob said...

The only hope I have for the film is the direction of Brad Bird and the "supporting" cast of Jeremy Renner. If the film is a hit, Cruise will never turn over the series to anybody else.