Mission: Impossible Review
by Michael McCrann (mikem30 AT aol DOT com)June 10th, 1996
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
A film review by Michael McCrann
Copyright 1996 Michael McCrann
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE is one of those megastar, megabudget summer action flicks that immediately makes one ponder the question; Why do top secret places have such large ventilation ducts in their ceilings? In GOLDENEYE, a spunky, Russian waif manages to hide in the duct in the ceiling of a top secret satellite-radar center in a desolate region of Russia to avoid detection by a thighmaster crazed villanette. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE has the spunky Tom Cruise breaking into CIA Headquarters in Langley while suspended like a marionette from a ventillation duct, the size of which would make it a suitable site for the 1996 Republican national convention.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, the Brian DePalma revisionist version of the 60's TV show is a slick, polished piece with good looking men in trenchcoats talking to other good looking men in trenchcoats via hidden microphones all while standing in alleys or briskly walking down the rain soaked cobblestone streets of Prague. Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt, the cocky, arrogant imp on which Crthe members of his IMF spy team killed in an apparent ambush. Since Cruise survives, post ergo proctor hoc, he is automatically assumed by the brass to be the mole that caused it all. >From there on, the plot is all too familiar - Avoid those who are trying to kill you, assemble a cast of competent outcasts, clear your good name, and avenge your fallen comrades. So much death. And to what end? Why, the noc list of course. What's a noc list and why is it so important to world security? This little tidbit is never adequately explained and tends to make all of Cruises adventures self-serving.
Besides being hackneyed, the plot is peppered with the usual spy cliches. Cruise uses a rubber mask to disguise himself on three separate occassions. He utilizes more exploding chewing gum than Pee Wee Herman. And of course, the good guy is really the bad guy who faked his own death in the beginning. Just like Pierce Bronsan in GOLDENEYE, Cruise is a poor judge of character.
Of course there are many additional problems with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE that screenwriters, David Koepp and Robert Towne, failed to reconcile. Such as the lack of a compelling villian and the purpose of ornamental characters like Ving Rhames. But perhaps, the most disturbing thing about MISSION IMPOSSIBLE is that it fails to live up to the standard set by the TV show. The show had intrigue and suspense and the movie has Cruise. The show had focus. Dictators ousted from power by exploiting their vulnerabilities. The movie has Cruise. The show tried to save the world. The movie tried to save Cruise. If Tom's boyish smirk is enough for you, then by all means, make your boyfriend take you to see this film. If you want more from your movie, do not accept this mission and go rent
GOLDENEYE.
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