The film that started this idiosyncratic spy franchise

Rating: 8/10 (1 February 2016)

NOTE: This review contains major SPOILERS, do not read if you've never seen this film but would like to. The first film in the Tom Cruise produced/starring "Mission: Impossible" film series is still one of the best in the franchise. Though a huge box office success when released in 1996, the film was (I would argue) misunderstood and unfairly maligned by contemporary critics. The 90s were a period where adaptations of old TV series started to become en vogue. Most were more parodies of their source material than adaptations (The Flinstones, The Brady Bunch, and The Adams Family spring immediately to mind). Mission: Impossible doesn't so much parody it's source material as flip it's middle finger at it. It's perhaps one of the most irreverent adaptations of anything I have ever seen, to the point where it's not clear who the target audience was. Criticized during it's initial release for a convoluted and hard-to-follow plot, revisiting the 60s' TV series is perhaps the best way to understand what the writers were going for here. See? Most Mission: Impossible episodes involved the Impossible Missions Forces team leader, Jim Phelps, learning the details of his latest mission, assembling his ensemble team of spies, and thwarting an enemy through disguise (with life-like face masks being a preferred method) and misdirection. The series was an ensemble, held together by Mr. Phelps but anchored by the idea of teamwork. As the film opens, Phelps learns that someone is planning to steal a disc containing the names of all the IMF's undercover operatives and sell it to an arms dealer. His mission, should he choose to accept it, is to replace the list with a fake one, and photograph this enemy agent committing the crime so he can be brought to justice. His team is assembled, and the mission is a go.
So far, so faithful. But that's when things take a turn. Unlike in the TV series of the same name, the mission does not go as planned. Most of the IMF agents on the case are brutally murdered during the operation, leaving only Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, and Phelps wife Claire alive. A smarmy CIA agent named Kitridge (Henry Czenry) reveals the thief was a plant, and that the real objective was to uncover a mole in the IMF. Since at this point in the story the only known survivor is Hunt, he is believed by the CIA to be the mole. Hunt escapes his meeting with Kitridge, and the story takes off in earnest. This is where the film (and it's first 3 sequels) reveal their true motivations: to create a star vehicle for two people—Tom Cruise and Brian De Palma (or whichever director was hired). The trappings of the TV series are little more than a gateway to what is in many ways unmistakably a Brian De Palma film, filled with double crosses, murder, some strange sexual politics, and much mystery and noirish atmosphere. Jim Phelps, the hero of the TV series, is later revealed to have survived the opening operation and is in fact the villain of the film adaptation. Most of Hunt's second team (other than Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell) are revealed to be turncoats, leaving Tom Cruise to save the day all by himself atop a speeding train in a scene that doesn't hold up very well 20 years later. What are fans of the TV series to make of this? The film was deeply unpopular with them on its initial release, and later sequels wouldn't so much subvert the trappings of the TV series the way this film does, as just ignore them. The point of this film is to be a starring action vehicle for Tom Cruise, with De Palma making the type of neo-noir he is mostly known for, using the TV series only as a vessel to do what he typically does. Using the "Mission: Impossible" name for a director to stamp his auteurist sensibilities all over it would become the hallmark of this series for it's first four installments.
Despite alienating the show's fan base, this film actually works exceptionally well at what it sets out to do. The film looks gorgeous, bathed in shadows and old world architecture. The plot twists are enjoyably outrageous. The performances are largely good, and Cruise gets to shine in what would become known as his "Teflon franchise", which has managed to stay successful even after his star power self-destructed on Oprah's couch in 5 seconds. The film is also worth commending for having a script where the writers actually seemed to care about the story. This is where my criticism of its initial critics comes into play, and I noticed I'm not the only one who's taken to IMDb to point this out. Despite being maligned as convoluted and muddled (the film was actually nominated for a razzie award for worst adapted screenplay), the film deserves credit for assuming you'll be smart enough to figure out what's going on without overexplaining the action. It also deserves much credit for subverting it's source material to such an extreme degree. No, it's not muddled, you simply need to pay attention. How nice that in 1996 a summer blockbuster assumed you wouldn't turn your brain off while watching. How nice a film based on a well known property didn't pander to it's fans, but subverted their every expectation. That's rather rare these days, and now our multiplexes are filled with ginormous budgeted schlock who's plots are, well, muddled, and filled with cheap "fan service". David Koepp and Robert Townsend wrote a smart script and were unfairly maligned for it. In the end, this film was the starting point for a series that took at least 15 years to truly find it's footing and hit it's stride. But it's a great start, and well worth watching.