Product: Mission: Impossible (1996)
Rating: 1.0
Impossible is the right word
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) Directed by Brian De Palma. David Koepp and Robert Towne. Produced by Tom Cruise. Score by Danny Elfman.Starring Tom Cruise, Jean Jeno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave, John McLoughlin, Emilio Estevez and Jon Voight as Jim Phelps.Another Clinton era film that, like CRIMSON TIDE,(see my review) is designed to denigrate and discredit anyone who sacrificed their lives and chances for personal happiness by fighting for Human Freedom and Democracy during the Cold War and who now, according to the film, deserve to be purged or better yet killed so they can be replaced by virile sexually potent Clintonistas.Any espionage film about the CIA that opens with a stirring tribute to the Church Commission which gutted the Agency so it was helpless to prevent 9/11 or indeed any terrorist attack during the 90s is obviously torn as to its intentions and effectively neutered into pointlessness.As such the film has three primary problems. 1) It dislikes the CIA and by implication considers the whole struggle against Communism somehow invalid. It never gives the IM team a new enemy--somehow missing out on the growing Islamic terrorist threat and has to settle for what is basically an internal struggle for promotion over who gets to lead the team. It is known that Jim Phelps turns out to be the villain--though considering the film's main intent and theme--this should be hardly surprising to anyone.2) It utterly loathes the TV program it is based on, its characters and everything it stood for and is, in effect, a detailed gutting of the same........which can do nothing but alienate fans of the show and new possible fans who might have been curious just what was all the fuss about. The answer?? A bunch of rat bastards who had the temerity to fight Communism and therefore, like Gene Hackman in CRIMSON TIDE, must be condemmed and consigned to the garbage heap.3) Tom Cruise as the new leader of the team. One simply does not understand this man's career. Playing Ethan Hunt, Cruise, instead of being a cool team player and professional, is a cocksure granstanding doofus who looks like he just got out of his plane in TOP GUN. He is even still chewing that damn piece of gum which EVEN BECOMES A MAJOR PLOT POINT!!! Irritating and generally unlikable, the viewer is hard pressed to work up any enthusiasm for the character and that someone like him could displace Jim Phelps and is intended to be an improvement simply palls. And since Hunt was off doing what ever he was doing in the next not to be viewed sequels while 9/11 happened, obviously Mr Hunt is lacking. The true IM team would have bagged and tagged Bin Ladin(or his fictional stand in) already, sabotaged the Iranian nuclear program and, using a clever ploy, turned the North Koreans against their Islamic clients.While the film is well directed and generally moves well, none of the characters and/or performances(with the possible exception of an all too brief Scott Thomas) are anything to write home about and instantly forgetable. There has been much carping about the helicopter in the tunnel finale but frankly since the film has little respect for anything else, why should it respect the laws of physics and gravity? Ultimately a film about nothing so much as giving Tom Cruise a viable franchise and in this it apparently succeeded but that is all one can say about this film that, while hardy foul, isnt much more than a carp or a guppy.It is a mission that will automatically self destruct from your memory in the five seconds after one has seen it.