It's too bad the sequel sucked

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2001)

Mission: Impossible is a great action film. Tom Cruise delivers a great performance as the famous Ethan Hunt, and the technological toys that he has in this film rival many of the toys seen in the James Bond films, very few of which are as good as this film. The story is very interesting, but is also hard to follow at some points. However, the end of the film actually goes back to recap what has happened, pointing out some things that you were almost guaranteed to have missed on the first viewing, and this retelling is flawlessly worked into the movie, so it's not like being told all over again what you have already seen.
What makes this movie so good is that the mystery is so well presented, and all of the performances are very good. It's true that a lot of the situations were fairly unrealistic (I don't think I even need to mention the fact that it is physically impossible to fly a helicopter in a tunnel), but the quality of the rest of the film more than makes up for these shortcomings. At least the movie wasn't manipulative. It's not excessively gory, there isn't unnecessary violence, there's no goofball romance, and the twists and turns are unexpected and very effective. And, most importantly, there is a brilliantly written script, with endlessly amusing lines like, `I want him manning a radar tower in Alaska by the end of the day, just mail him his clothes.' Why can't there be more movies with cool lines like that? James Bond sure as hell never uttered anything that clever.
Some of the action sequences in Mission: Impossible have become famous, such as the nail-biting break-in scene where Hunt is hanging over the glowing floor in the room protected by the world's greatest alarm system, as well as the less effective helicopter tunnel scene. As a whole, this is a very high quality action film. It does have a few problems, but the rest of the film is so good that you are able to easily overlook them.