04/30/10 - Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible (1996, 110 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117060/

My roommate had mentioned catching a bit of this on television the other day so we decided we'd check out the whole film. I'd seen all three in the series and this one was far and away the best. Oh, the days when Tom Cruise made good movies and wasn't crazy...

The film follows Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) who must discover the mole in the organization while all along the IMF believes him to be the mole. For his mission he enlists the help of Franz Krieger (Jean Reno) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames). He eventually discovers the moles are Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart).

Mission: Impossible takes two drastically different approaches here, one of which I really like and one of which I don't like. The first - the one I like - is its ability to create great tension. The one scene has become iconic as Hunt hangs from the ceiling while trying to hack into a computer system. This is how you make me sit on the edge of my seat as I watch. I mean, I knew exactly how most everything was going to play out and it was still a joy to watch. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the end scene with the helicopter in the tunnel. Here we lose all believability and the movie has a somewhat stupid finish. Sure, not everything up to this point has been all that believable but it's been at least realistic enough to where you can accept the vast majority of it. The ending however is bordering on absurd. It's fun but this lack of realism hurts the overall product.

Mission: Impossible has a somewhat complicated plot. It ends up walking a fine line between being a "smart" spy movie and one that's just too convoluted. For the most part, the film is fine. However, during the final "reveal" the movie jumped around too much in my opinion. I think the film should've taken more time here to really establish everything. Maybe I'm just stupid and didn't pay attention enough or something but I thought it rushed these critical moments. However, on the "smart" front Mission: Impossible is really good. Up until this final moment, the film is never too cheesy or too hokey for it's own good which really works to its advantage. The large social scene and the computer scene are just two examples of this. Also, the film doesn't try to throw in extra plot details to bog down the story (such as a love story). It makes the whole movie about revenge and finding the mole which is how it should have been done in my opinion.

Overall, I gave this film a 6/10. Mission: Impossible is an above average action film. It has some moments where I have to suspend my disbelief a little too much though and that hurts. It's still better than the sequels.