Guilty Pleasure- Ethan Hunt "American Bond"

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2005)

When I first saw this film 5 years ago at the cinema I was a little disappointed. I enjoyed the film a lot but I was a big fan of Mission Impossible 1 and had seen the TV series on occasion. The first movie was a great spy film, with all its clever twists and turns and Ethan Hunt a sympathetic human character, here he is recast as action man or to put it another way the American version of James Bond, which would have been fine if not for Tom Cruise essentially being a completely different character than he was in MI1. But thats where the negative points end. This movie is, on the surface a big cheesy action film, the kind of thing Dolph Lundgren or Steven Segal would be in, only its good. There is a good plot despite many comments although you do get the sense that the plot was put in afterwards to facilitate the action. Essentially its about villains peddling a super virus and its cure so they can make money from making people ill and then selling the cure. Its really not that important, this movie shines in the action scenes and has some excellent cheesy dialogue "This isn't mission difficult Mr.Hunt, this is mission impossible"
Overall this is the movie equivalent of eating an entire box of quality street to yourself in one sitting- you love it but feel a bit guilty afterwards.
If you have the DVD be sure to watch "Mission Improbable" an excellent behind the scenes parody from MTV with Ben Stiller.