Product: Mission: Impossible (1996)
Rating: 4.0
Excellent in its best moments
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team go to Prague in an effort to stop someone from selling a list of all the American covert agents stationed in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the mission turns into an ambush with virtually the entire team getting killed. The brass figures that Hunt is a traitor who set up his team, so Ethan goes on the run to try and clear his name.The plot of this movie is somewhat convoluted, though perhaps that is reasonable for a film about espionage and counter-espionage. Things move along pretty quickly for the and there are no major lulls in the action. The characters have at least a little depth to them, but this is not a drama built on deep characterization either. The action sequences mostly work well and the highlight comes halfway through the movie when Ethan and crew break into CIA headquarters in what is easily the most memorable part of the film. Unfortunately, the big climax at the end involves a train scene that is so unbelievable (even by action movie standards) that it can only be described as laughable.The other flaw in this movie only counts if you have seen the original TV show or believe that the film should respect the source material in any way. By turning one of the original characters into a traitor, the producers betrayed everything that character ever stood for. The only thing the traitor had in common with the original is the name, so the film could have used the exact same script with a different character name to honor the old show but that wouldn't have had the same shock value. It's a shame that they chose to spit on the show even as they traded on the name recognition to get people into the movie theaters.If this film is judged on its own merits, setting aside the television series, it's a pretty good action movie. The ending was a farce, but the movie was solid up to that point with some scenes achieving true excellence. I would recommend it to those who never saw the original show or can set their knowledge of it aside and just take the movie for what it is.