Unfaithful to the TV series which emphasized clever teamwork.

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2002)

This movie supports the theory that there is no movie idea so good that it can't be ruined if the producer and director have too much money to spend. Once upon a time there was a TV series called "Mission Impossible" which employed an ensemble cast of actors portraying espionage agents very dependent upon clever strategies, accurate timing and teamwork to carry out their risky assignments. They all had plenty of work to do and, for the most part, played their parts extremely well. It came as quite a shock to me that the concepts of mutual dependence and trust were abandoned in this new movie, replaced by the concept that nobody can be trusted and nothing is what it seems to be. Three of the world's most talented living actresses, Emmanuelle Beart, Vanessa Redgrave and Kristin Scott Thomas, appear in the new movie and none of them have anything significant to get across to the audience. I was especially disappointed that Ms. Beart, of `Manon des Sources' fame, did not have a better part. Her English is almost flawless in an era when many American actors are rewarded for their ability to speak unintelligibly. I hope that she gets a better English language script soon. It's been quite a while since any new work of Ms. Bearet, in any language, has appeared on US coded DVD or VHS! Worst of all, I got sick of seeing Tom Cruse doing most of the espionage work that had previously been assigned to a team of actors portraying specialists in the old TV series. Rightly or wrongly, he came across as an egomaniac.