Mission: Impossible (B- or 2.5/4 stars)
Based on the popular TV show from the 60's/70's, 'Mission: Impossible', directed by Brian De Palma, offers a mixed bag of pleasures & disappointments. But I'll get more into those later. Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) & his team are sent to Prague to stop a traitor from stealing & selling classified material. All is well until the entire team gets killed - all sans secret agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise). Having survived, Ethan calls the Director & goes to meet him. What he discovers is that the entire mission was to uncover a mole that they've considered suspicious for quite a while. What's worse? The Director seems to think that Ethan is the mole!
Knowing that he's not (and framed for the deaths of his espionage team), Ethan must flee from gov't assassins, arrange secret meetings, break into the CIA's most impenetrable vault, ride atop speeding trains, & use unorthodox methods to try & find out who set him up in the 1st place. With help from Phelps' wife, Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), & 2 other agents, can Ethan clear his name? Why & who set him up?
'Mission: Impossible' sure has a lot going on; moving at a fairly brisk pace. Some moments are exciting (like the now iconic breaking-into-the-vault scene); my palms were sweaty from that one. Some of the dialogue is smart. There are a couple of enjoyable sequences & set pieces. The quality of the cast is impressive (Cruise, Voight, Vanessa Redgrave, Kristin Scott Thomas, etc.). Superstar Tom Cruise certainly looks cool; if a little pompous.
But overall, I just wasn't thrilled with this film. The plot is ambitious, but highly convoluted, & doesn't end as satisfactorily as hoped. I didn't fully understand everything that Ethan was 'doing'. The character development is weak. And I became disinterested in the story at several points. The movie never really catches fire and/or sustains momentum. Moments of greatness come both before & after flat, humorless stretches. Like I said, some moments really impress. I'll never forget 'em. But I felt disconnected; dis-involved on the whole.
Knowing that he's not (and framed for the deaths of his espionage team), Ethan must flee from gov't assassins, arrange secret meetings, break into the CIA's most impenetrable vault, ride atop speeding trains, & use unorthodox methods to try & find out who set him up in the 1st place. With help from Phelps' wife, Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), & 2 other agents, can Ethan clear his name? Why & who set him up?
'Mission: Impossible' sure has a lot going on; moving at a fairly brisk pace. Some moments are exciting (like the now iconic breaking-into-the-vault scene); my palms were sweaty from that one. Some of the dialogue is smart. There are a couple of enjoyable sequences & set pieces. The quality of the cast is impressive (Cruise, Voight, Vanessa Redgrave, Kristin Scott Thomas, etc.). Superstar Tom Cruise certainly looks cool; if a little pompous.
But overall, I just wasn't thrilled with this film. The plot is ambitious, but highly convoluted, & doesn't end as satisfactorily as hoped. I didn't fully understand everything that Ethan was 'doing'. The character development is weak. And I became disinterested in the story at several points. The movie never really catches fire and/or sustains momentum. Moments of greatness come both before & after flat, humorless stretches. Like I said, some moments really impress. I'll never forget 'em. But I felt disconnected; dis-involved on the whole.