MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1996 Michael Redman
[Note: This appeared in The Bloomington Voice (Bloomington, IN) May 30, 1996]
** (out of ****)
Supposedly based on the television series from the late sixties and early seventies, this film directed by Brian De Palma is only barely. It does have the series title, a character's name (although certainly not the *same* character) and some hi-tech gobligoop, but that's all that connects it to the original.
The series featured a team that pulled off a complex operation each episode that featured disguises, split-second timing and usually completed its task without anyone from the outside knowing what had happened.
The movie gives us a 'James Bond-Lite' lone agent (Tom Cruise) who blows up a bunch of stuff. The first few minutes lull the audience into a false sense of a Mission: Impossible film with a group assigned to catch the thief of a NOC list naming undercover agents. Unfortunately for the team and the film, most of them shortly meet an untimely demise including Emilio Estevez, easily the most interesting Mission member.
The only survivors are Cruise and Emmanuelle Beart ("Manon Of The Spring"), an actress of skill but in a fairly worthless role here. The spy bosses have known for some time that there was a mole on the team and since Cruise survived, decide that it is him. Cruise and Beart have to go after the bad guys while ducking the good guys. Any of this sound familiar?
The film is an action movie disguised as a mystery in the guise of Mission: Impossible. And not a very good one of any of them. The few action scenes are physically impossible although well paced. The mystery is easily solved moments after it is posed. The one remaining M:I character, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight, originally Peter Graves) has nothing in common with the original. Fans of the series will not recognize much.
Cruise's boyish appeal complete with trademarked grins doesn't play very well. Bond he ain't. Besides the disappearing and uncredited Estevez, there are only two actors with much charisma. Veteran actress Vanessa Redgrave shines in what is an unusual role in films: an extremely sexual older woman. Oddly cast, big tough-looking Ving Rhames ("Pulp Fiction") is fascinating as the kind-hearted but devious computer hacker.
Selling out even at mid-afternoon matinees, the movie has enough explosions to rake in the big bucks for Paramount and make it a summer blockbuster. If you're looking for quality though, you might want to save your money.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews