Product: Mission: Impossible (1996)
Rating: 3.0
Standard 1990's Action Fare
When I call this film "standard action fare," I mean that it's a film where the action scenes and the effects are the main drawing cards. It's not a memorable film, or one that I see myself viewing repeatedly, but it has enough strengths to be watchable.Other reviewers have found "Mission: Impossible's" plot confusing. I found it merely routine--a by-the-numbers MacGuffin plot which serves mainly to fill screen time between the three big set-piece action scenes. I simply didn't find myself caring about the characters or what was happening to them.It is the first two of those three set-pieces which make this film reasonably worthwhile viewing. In the first, the majority of hero Ethan Hunt's IMF team is wiped out in Prague. In the second, Hunt must penetrate a super-secure CIA computer lab to steal the aforementioned MacGuffin, a list of secret agents. In both scenes, director Brian De Palma eschews exotic special effects in favor of some old-fashioned suspense, with very succesful results. The third set-piece, a chase on board a train, strains plausibility at times and works less well.There is only one weak link in the cast. Unfortunately, it is Tom Cruise, who is not a good choice as Ethan Hunt (since Cruise co-produced the film, he may be partly to blame for miscasting himself). Cruise is fine in the action scenes, but he simply doesn't project the intelligence that his character demands. He plays the role like it's a reprise of the grinning, live-on-the-edge pilot he played in "Top Gun," and that doesn't work here.A talented supporting cast is largely wasted. Vanessa Redgrave gives an interesting performance, and Ving Rhames leaves a strong impression in limited screen time. Otherwise, talented performers like Jon Voight, Emanuelle Beart, Emilio Estevez and Kristin Scott Thomas are given very little to do.Finally, while I was never a big fan of the MI television series, I do think that resurrecting the Jim Phelps character from the series, only to have him turn villain, is going a bit too far. I can readily understand why fans of the series would have trouble suspending their disbelief on that point.