This is one of the worst movies of the 90's.

Rating: Null/10 (7 January 2004)

I was a fan of the 80's TV series known as 'Mission Impossible', so I was keenly awaiting the Hollywood movie with the same name, starring Tom Cruise. While I feel it was not a completely bad film, I am a person who was not impressed by most aspects of it, especially in its confusing story. There were also some scenes which I feel were totally 'wanky', bringing this film down for me big time.
Ethan Hunt is a secret agent framed for the deaths of his espionage team. Fleeing from government assassins, breaking CIA's most impenetrable vault, clinging to the roof of a speeding bullet train, Hunt races like a burning fuse to stay one step ahead of his pursers.and draw one step closer to discovering the shocking truth.
The main offenders in this movie have to be the script writers, who did what I would say was an appalling job with this movie's script. Firstly to kill off so many of the 'mission impossible' team does not work in my opinion, as it makes the team members that are left, seem all the more important. But if they cannot fill the void left by their former partners, then the whole franchise will have problems.
Then to make characters come back to life, or change from one side to another just makes the story even more confusing. This leads me to the complex plot of the film. Now usually I love a film that takes the audience a while to work out, but in Mission Impossible, I found this story to be too confusing, which did not allow me to appreciate what it was trying to show. The writers include David Koepp, Steven Zaillian and Robert Towne, with this story loosely based on the television series created by Bruce Geller.
The direction of 'Mission Impossible' was taken on by Brian De Palma, who gave us such films as the Untouchables and horror classic 'Carrie'. In general De Palma did an ok job with this film, but the story he was working with did not allow him to bring out the movie's great action, which I believe were missing. However I was not a big fan of the cinematography of this film, done by Stephen H. Burum. I mean the supposed 'great' scenes of the film are not shown in a way that I liked, which made me hate the movie even more.
The main star of the MI was its producer. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a man who is placed into a situation that finds is getting more and more precarious as he goes along. As cool as Cruise looks in the part of Hunt, it is my feeling that a different actor could do justice to the role, while at the same time filling the hole that is left by the lack of MI team members.
The other cast members are very difficult to work out. The original team include leader Jim 'Mr.' Phelps (Jon Voight), who is a very strange man indeed. Other agents include Claire (Emmanuelle Béart), Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott-Thomas), Max (Vanessa Redgrave) and Jack Harmon (the unaccredited Emilio Estevez). Something bad has happened to this team, and Hunt has been framed for it.
After Hunt lets team boss Kittridge (Henry Czerny), know that he understands what is going, Hunt looks for help from some new team members. The only other agent left is Claire, but now helping Hunt are Luther (Ving Rhames) an ok character, Krieger (Jean Reno) and Frank Barnes (Dale Dye). Yet everything is still not right. Hunt is helping out top government official, Hannah (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), which in turn will help clear his name from all the mess he finds himself in.
There are two scenes in this film that I am sure people love, but I truly hate. The first is when Hunt is helped inside an impenetrable vault, when he is trying to get a hold of crucial government documents. Now most people would say that this sequence is 'thrilling', but not for me. I was not moved by it all, as I feel this scene tried to hard to be thrilling, making it quite dull. The other bad scene is the total end of the film, when Hunt is being chased by Mr. Phelps and Krieger on a speeding bullet train with a helicopter. This sequence for me was uneventful, unrealistically shot and clichéd, with the way we see Hunt end up being totally unoriginal in my view. In fact the last 40 minutes of MI are the most boring I have ever seen in a spy film.
However there are some areas I do like in the film. Like James Bond, I enjoy many of the various 'spy toys' that make this job seem very fun. Such devices as explosive chewing gum, eyeglasses with built in TV cameras, many agents in different elaborate disguises and the way that laptop computers are used by quoting a certain verse in the bible. I must also admit that I am a big fan of the Mission Impossible theme, which has been great to listen for the best part of 20 years now. The music for this film was done by Danny Elfman, with the original Mission: Impossible theme by Lalo Schifrin.
It is ironic that this film was called 'Mission Impossible', because it was rather an 'impossible mission' for me too actually like it, in fact I hated most of it. Mission Impossible is a film that had the potential to be great, but alas it was not. Perhaps if the script writers were more intent on making a film that made a bit of sense and tried not to change the MI idea I could have liked it. But unfortunately they changed it, and by doing so, they have a huge detractor in me.
CMRS gives 'Mission Impossible': 1.5 (Bad - Ok Film)