Review of Mission: Impossible (1996) by Colginator — 18 Aug 2015

In a time where a lot of classic TV shows were being given weak cinematic remakes ("The Flintstones", "The Beverly Hillbillies" etc.), Mission Impossible overcame this negative trend by bringing in Brian De Palma do his own take of the series. With the gadgets of a Bond movie, the pacing of a Hitchcockian thriller, and the stunt work of a great American action movie, De Palma was able to breath new life into a classic show and begun one of the most enduring film franchises in recent memory.

It stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, a professional spy, who along with his team accept a mission to retrieve an important file and catch the enemy agent who is attempting to steal it. But things begin to go gravely wrong, with Ethan seemingly left as the lone survivor. After this Ethan is suspected of being a double agent and goes on the run from his own agency, setting out to find the real culprit using whatever methods necessary to clear his name.

Rather than going the route of more recent spy flicks like "Kingsman: The Secret Service" that parodies the spy genre, "Mission: Impossible" does the exact opposite. Instead it indulges in all the clichés, with elaborate disguises, high tech gadgets, high octane explosions, double crosses, and many surprise twists. Although one problem with these twists is it's quite easy to poke holes in them, since they're often done with no foreshadowing and there's little logic behind the characters plans. But this never really matters, for this is a film that lives in the moment. These twists mostly exist to draw us further into the nail biting tension and succeed at doing so.

In spite of De Palma arguably being best known for his iconic shootouts, such as the ending of "Scarface" or "The Untouchables" stair sequence, here our lead never fires a single gun. Instead of using standard action shoot ups or fist brawls, the film delivers tension with 3 unique action sequences: the opening infiltration of the ball room; the vault heist dangling from a wire on the ceiling in the middle of the film; and the final chase involving a helicopter following a high speed train into a tunnel.

The ballroom sequence works as a brilliant introduction to this world of spies. We see the cool gadgets, their detailed plans and how similar to other great spies like Bond they keep a sharp wit whilst they do it. At the same time the scene remains unpredictable, with so many things going wrong that it's really uncertain of who will get out alive.

Then comes the iconic vault heist where Hunt dangles from wires to steal data from a heavily secured vault. This scene has to stand as one of Palma's greatest contributions to cinema. It may take influence from other great heists like Jules Dassin's "Riffi", Palma still adds his own unique take on the concept. Largely by bringing so many great elements together in the scene with slow pacing, great stunt work from Cruise and the way that the scene juggles so many risks from the worker who could walk in at any moment to the sweat dripping from Hunt's head.

Unfortunately the final sequence does not live up to the previous two. The basic concept is cool, with Cruise chasing the villains on top of a speeding train whilst a helicopter chases, but unfortunately it falls flat due to execution. Obviously with a scene like this CGI is a necessity, for actually having a helicopter following a train into a tunnel really would be impossible. But 90's effects just weren't ready to portray a sequence like this authentically. Also whilst the concept of a chase on a speeding train is great, adding in a helicopter just seems like overkill and draws attention to the scenes lack of realism in contrast to the previous tone of the film. Although even with this the chase is still entertaining on a basic level, but just fails to deliver the same tension of previous scenes.

Besides this it's far from ruining the brilliance that preceded it, with Palma's brilliant execution mixed with the excitement of a great spy thriller allows "Mission: Impossible" to overcome all the usual expectations of a typical action movie, and is a heck of a lot of fun because of it.