While I try to watch as many movies as I can while they’re coming out I have to admit there are some I just avoid out of disinterest or a hassle. Action and horror movies most notably unless there’s a major conversation around them I’ll typically overlook. I’m sure I’m not losing much by not seeing Prey for the Devil or Smile. But it has led to me skipping any installment of what major action franchises there still are -most notably Fast and Furious and Mission: Impossible, two of the last remaining bankable movie franchises not tied to a superhero or Star Wars property. Both have been going on for a long time and I think just the prospect of having to play catch-up for a series I wouldn’t be terribly invested in anyway discouraged me from seeing them when they came along.
But that had been my same attitude to Marvel …until Guardians of the Galaxy. And it’s not like Marvel movies had a reputation for being bad or that critics overwhelmingly disliked them -as had been the case of the Transformers series. Much like Marvel, Fast and the Furious and Mission: Impossible had at least in recent years gained critical clout. Eventually I realized that inevitably I would catch up with them -for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.
And I think the time has come for at least one of those, with the first epic part of its’ ostensibly two-part franchise finale coming out next spring. Mission: Impossible as a film series has been generally going strong for twenty-six years now, initially a spin-off of the classic TV series of the 60s that has evolved into its’ own unique entity defined largely by the star power of Tom Cruise and the insanely elaborate stunts that he performs himself. I’ve heard a lot of great things about these movies, for the last decade or so, each subsequent one has increased in notoriety and acclaim. So what am I missing? It’s high time I chose to accept the mission of watching these movies, and I’m doing just that for the month of November (and a little bit into December). Mission: Impossible Month, here we go!
I think one of the reasons I’ve been curious to check out this series is that it has had a variety of creative voices steering the ship over its’ lifespan. Obviously the constant has been Tom Cruise, who has produced all of them and had a hand in envisioning the stunts he would perform. But they have come from a curious mix of directors and defined visions. The first four were helmed by different people, before Paramount settled on one guy to carry it through to the end -a trajectory that is astonishingly similar to the Harry Potter franchise and I wonder if the individual effects of this are in any way compatible.
The first director for the Mission: Impossible series was none other than Brian De Palma working off a script assembled by such luminaries as Robert Towne (writer of Chinatown), David Koepp (writer of Jurassic Park), and Steven Zallian (writer of Schindler’s List). The concept came about as part of that 90s craze of turning TV shows from the 60s and 70s into movies: The Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Fugitive, The Flintstones, The Brady Bunch Movie, Wild Wild West, My Favorite Martian, Charlie’s Angels, etc. But perhaps owing to the creatives this one had in place, it departs quite drastically from the spirit of those movies. Rather than move the timeline up or reboot it in a modern context it takes an almost scorched earth approach that they would never get away with today.
Tom Cruise is introduced as Ethan Hunt, the point-man on a team for the Impossible Missions Force assigned to Jim Phelps, the senior agent from the show, here played by Jon Voight. On the team also is Emmanuelle Béart as Phelps’ much younger wife Claire, Emilio Estevez, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ingeborga Dapkūnaité. But on a mission in Prague to prevent a rogue agent from stealing the CIA list of undercover spies, they are compromised and all but Hunt apparently killed. His IMF director Kittridge (Henry Czerny) reveals the operation was a reuse to root out a mole in the team and with Hunt the only survivor he is the obvious candidate. Now he must go on the run to find the real mole and clear his name.
That’s actually a pretty interesting premise for the movie, and kind of bold to pit the protagonist for a chunk of it against the organization central to the series continuity. The plot was apparently criticized for being convoluted but it feels no more so than your average Bond flick -I could follow it pretty succinctly- although it does probably have a layer it doesn’t need. Specifically the arms dealer Max, played by Vanessa Redgrave, who worked with the mole and requires Hunt to obtain the real NOC list (the one that was “stolen” having been faked as part of the sting operation) to give them up. This part of the narrative merely facilitates the films’ central action set-piece: a raid on a vault at the CIA, and links Hunt up with hacker Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames, who I recognize as being a mainstay of this series), and pilot Franz Krieger (Jean Reno, who isn’t a mainstay and thus probably a villain or cannon-fodder). Concurring with this is the re-emergence of Claire, another apparent survivor and pretty obvious traitor whose role in the bulk of the film is to tease Hunt's romantic instincts and make him look a little more clueless. I wasn’t terribly impressed with what they did with Béart here.
What I was impressed with though was De Palma’s directing, as this isn’t the kind of movie that comes to mind when I think of him as a filmmaker. But he does make it look slicker than a lot of action movies in his occasional uses of Dutch angles, those split dioptre shots, the pacing, perspectives, and camera movement in the tense scenes; specifically the vault break-in, which he and Cruise make surprisingly compelling, without having to use cliché elements like security lasers or a ticking clock. And though it incorporates more CGI effects than practical stunt-work, the climactic train chase is likewise shot and constructed very well, with an eye for the imagery. Cruise’s commitment in these moments does contribute to them being genuinely thrilling, I understand why it became such a central component of the series. As for De Palma, he leaves his mark in a notable way, concentrating on the intrigue over the action and bringing in a few noir elements, as well as of course the riskiest gambit he and his writers pull off.
The big twist of Mission: Impossible is that the mole was in fact Phelps all along, that he betrayed the IMF in disillusionment over the end of the Cold War and changes to espionage protocol. I can only imagine the backlash this choice would receive today, essentially a betrayal of the TV show and a character assassination of its’ protagonist -it seems to have been the key reason Peter Graves, the star of the show, passed on reprising his role. But in the context of the movie it fits, and is played very well in how Hunt uncovers the truth and exposes his former mentor. From the Gideon Bible clue to the face mask to the spy glasses and ultimately the Chunnel chase sequence (Krieger is indeed both a villain and cannon-fodder), it’s just a lot of thrilling, well-written spy shit.
At times it plays like a generic spy movie with merely smart directorial flare, but Mission: Impossible is still a pretty decent, thoroughly fun time. Cruise is putting more effort into the physicality of the role than the performance, but of course he makes for a solid lead. And the script is quite impressive and audacious, even if it does throw away all investment in the series that spawned it. This was the third highest-grossing movie of 1996 (behind just Independence Day and Twister) -clearly a franchise was in the works, but who would have thought one of such an enduring scope and appeal?
Next week, we’ll look at John Woo’s take on Ethan Hunt’s continuing adventures now as a mission leader in 2000’s Mission: Impossible 2.
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