Change is good. In the previous Mission: Impossible films, leading man Tom Cruise has been put through his paces by different visionary film-makers — Brian De Palma, John Woo and JJ Abrams — with a distinctive voice and aesthetic. Brad Bird, Oscar-winning director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille, might seem an unlikely candidate to orchestrate thrills of the fourth high-octane caper but is an inspired choice.

Making his live action debut, Bird brings a playfulness and wry sense of humour to Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol. From the moment Tom Cruise’s secret agent barks, “Light the fuse,” cueing Lalo Schifrin’s iconic theme music over the opening credits, our pulses race and we’re strapped tight in for a giddy thrill ride.

Impossible Missions Force operative Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is sprung from a Russian jail by fellow agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). They are ordered to break into the Kremlin to steal intelligence files that reveal the identity of a terrorist codenamed Cobalt. The mission turns sour when madman Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) detonates a bomb inside the iconic building to cover up the theft of Russian nuclear launch codes. Disowned by the US government, Ethan, Jane, Benji and top analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) must operate unoficially to apprehend Hendricks before nuclear Armageddon.

The next James Bond movie will have to up its game to match the miasma of ingenious gadgets, bone-crunching fight sequences and death-defying acrobatics seen here. Bird’s film is a delight, careering from the jail break and the demolition of the Kremlin to a breathless chase through a sand storm and a bruising skirmish in an Indian car manufacturing plant.

What the script lacks in plausibility — almost everything — it compensates for with unabashed, all-guns-blazing fun. The fourth film keeps Cruise in the eye of the storm, allowing the gung-ho star to perform many of his own jaw-dropping stunts.

The actor throws himself into the melee with boundless energy, scaling the dizzying heights of the world’s tallest building in Dubai or zip-lining on to the roof of a moving vehicle on the streets of Moscow. It’s hard to believe he turns 50 in the summer. Patton injects ballsy girl power and Pegg brings welcome comic relief, while Renner proves his action credentials before taking the lead in The Bourne Legacy next year.

For now, 2011 ends with an almighty bang and Cruise firmly in control.

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is found guilty of slandering a prominent industrialist in his magazine Millennium, edited by on-off lover Erika Berger (Robin Wright) in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. With his reputation in tatters, Mikael accepts a commission from the reclusive Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). The old man is haunted by the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet almost 40 years ago and he hopes the journalist will be able to deduce who abducted and killed the teenager. Taking up residence on the Vanger estate, the hack begins work and is soon aided by computer expert Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). Together, the unlikely sleuths follow the trail of secrets and lies, trusting no one as skeletons tumble out of the Vanger closet.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is as emotionally cold as the barren lands where the case unfolds and Fincher’s film isn’t helped by Craig’s charisma-free portrayal of a man on a mission. His fleeting, half-hearted attempts at an accent are blown away by the icy wind. Thankfully, Mara is beguiling as the tattooed and pierced avenging angel with a brilliant mind, although she falls short of Rapace’s heartbreaking interpretation.

Supporting performances are solid, notably Plummer as a wily patriarch, who beholds the rest of his clan with disdain.