Entertaining but ticked me off

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 1999)

This was an entertaining film. OK, the stunts may have been a little implausible (most movie stunts are anyway) and it may have deviated significantly from the ensemble nature of the series, but I thought that it stood up well on its own as a spy film. Some found it too difficult to follow, but to me that kind of challenge makes for interesting viewing.
What really ticked me off was the treatment of the Jim Phelps character (I guess the film's been out long enough to reveal that they made him the bad guy). This simply wasn't nessesary. Not only did they make the good guy of the old series the villain of the movie, they made him a particularly vile and nasty one. This is a bit like having Batman team up with the Joker or James Bond decide to go for the bucks and to hell with the rest of the world. Although I enjoyed the movie, I will always hold a bit of a grudge against it for such a lapse of good judgement.