Product: Mission: Impossible (1996)
Rating: 3.0
Convoluted but enjoyable
I've never been able to understand the storyline to this movie, there are way too many twists & turns, but I don't even try to understand it anymore. It's still highly enjoyable, even if the storyline goes straight over my head. Mind you, most stuff does.I love this film, mainly cos it's Tom Cruise while he was still with Nicole Kidman (and now with Katie Holmes?!), and before he became more known for his 'love' of Scientology than anything else. He's a bit of a hunk in this one too. He's more in the press these days spouting stuff about Scientology, and jumping for joy about having to marry Katie Holmes. (He's probably going to have to teach her everything!)But back to the film. There's also a great cast of actors in this, including Tom, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Emilio Estevez (I only just realised who he was, he looks strange for some reason), Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart (doesn't she have gorgeous hair?), Jean Reno, Ving Rhames and Vanessa Redgrave. Emilio was cast in the role of Jack Harmon to create a sense of shock in the audience when he died early in the film. The film makers felt that casting a well-known actor in the role would increase the impact of Jack Harmon's death. And what a death it was! I still have to look away, despite having watched this many times (including when I had it on video *gulp*)There's lots of amazing scenes in this, the most amazing of all is the scene where Tom drops from the ceiling and hovers inches above the ground, his head kept hitting the floor until he got the idea to put coins in his shoes for balance.I love the little "are they, aren't they?" subplot between Tom's character Ethan & Emmanuelle's character. Do not covet thy neighbour's wife. But there's definitely a few scenes which were probably cut, leading to much more of a relationship between them, rather than what was left in the film, with stolen glances and that's about it! It never goes much further than a chaste kiss.There's not much else I can say about this film. It starts straight away, rather than stopping first at the menu page. Will there ever be a special edition do you think? I hope so at some point. Knowing my luck since I just bought it, one will get announced.I don't remember the second Mission Impossible being as memorable as this one, but I've seen this one many times, whereas I only watched Mission Impossible II once.