MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
**1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1996, PG-13, 110 minutes [1 hour, 50 minutes] [thriller/action] starring: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Jon Voight (Jim Phelps), Emmanuelle Beart (Claire), Henry Czerny (Kittridge), written by David Koepp, Robert Towne, Steven Zaillian, produced by Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner, directed by Brian De Palma, based on the television series created by Bruce Geller.
In Hollywood, the way to make an audience think a movie is well crafted and full of detail is to make the plot very confusing but the individual events interesting. "Mission: Impossible" is probably the epitome of this type of mindset, as it follows it to the letter. Some of the scenes and events are pretty interesting, but from beginning to end it's nearly impossible to follow as a whole.
Although the movie is based on the television series of the same name, it bears little, if any, resemblance to its inspiration. It starts off in the spirit of the series by showing a team of super sneaks and computer hackers trying to sabotage a foreign embassy banquet. There is Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, the fearless agent who plunges deep into "enemy" territory under a perfect disguise. There is Jon Voight as Jim Phelps, the wise old leader who coordinates the team via super advanced technology. And there are also two women (Emmanuelle Beart and Kristen Scott-Thomas) undercover, along with the wiseass hacker (played by Emilio Estevez in an uncredited role).
At first their teamwork seems to have a lot of potential to it; the chemistry between the characters more than makes up for the loopy plot. It's interesting to watch them use such fantastic technology, such as micro cameras inside their glasses, and lots of computer hacking. The story doesn't seem like something to take seriously, and it even could have been a good satire like James Cameron's "True Lies." Unfortunately, something terrible goes wrong and all the team members start getting killed, except for heroic Ethan Hunt of course. And just as all these bad things start happening to the characters, the same thing happens to the movie.
Ethan escapes and makes it back to the group's makeshift headquarters and from here on the film has a huge snowballing effect with conspiracies, espionage, computer crime, money laundering, and any government-related, white collar crime you can think of. There are the token scenes as Ethan starts to put clues together and realizes things that were under his nose all along. Scenes like these can have a chilling effect when done properly (a la "Sneakers"), but it doesn't occur here because the story is too hard to follow. For example, Ethan's mission was called "Job 314," and when he sees a Bible, he realizes it's a code for the book of Job, chapter three, verse 14. He even figures out someone's e-mail address from this quote!
You have to give this movie credit, it knows it's confusing, but at least it throws in a lot of individual, [supposedly] suspenseful scenes. One such incident involves the breaking into CIA headquarters with sensors so sensitive alarms will go off even if a drop of sweat hits the floor. Break-in scenes like this all always the same - the heroes barely accomplish their mission by doing tasks at the last possible nanosecond and just when they think they're in the clear, an accident happens and we get a terrific battle and/or escape scene.
The ending is an action/adventure extravaganza; the enemy turns out to be the person you'd least expect with a lot of double crosses and tricks. Tom Cruise peels off a mask to reveal his face so many times, it's difficult to tell if his character is the same person in every scene. There is a scene with fantastic stunts and special effects with a helicopter chasing a train through a tunnel... if you've seen the highlights you know where this is going (not to mention the whole movie for that matter).
I don't know why "Mission: Impossible" was made the way it was. You would think the filmmakers would realize how confusing it is and try to clear up the story a little, but they probably just assumed the whole reason to make it and to watch it is for the special effects and the neat gadgets. Yes, these elements are well done, but what good will they do if we have no idea what's going on?
Please visit Chad'z Movie page @ http://members.aol.com/ChadPolenz
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