Good Morning, agent. The Mission: Impossible film series is essentially a filmmakers action thrill ride sand box. Each film is helmed by a new director with their own personal vision, and at their disposal is a large budget, an iconic lead actor who will perform all of his own stunts and a title certain to sell box office tickets. Each film offers a unique one of a kind thrilling experience, and I have enjoyed watching this rush of a film series. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read my thoughts on my experiences watching the first five Mission: Impossible films. This message will self destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, agent.
Mission: Impossible
Directed by Brian De Palma
3.5/5
I came into contact with Mission: Impossible, before I saw any of the films, by playing the Mission: Impossible Gameboy Color game. I was not good at it, and I kept getting a Game Over around the third level. My most favorite part of the game was its music. The first level featured a 16 bit version of the Mission: Impossible theme. Anytime I hear that theme I thought of danger, espionage, high stakes and pulse pounding thrills. This is exactly what I got from my first experience with Mission: Impossible, when I watched the film on VHS.
Surprisingly the first standout element of this film is not Tom Cruise, but how this film uses tension and intrigue in order to create suspense. Each of Mission: Impossible's thrilling moments offers a new sense of danger differing from the last. While this film does a great job depicting physical danger, this film more prominently features mental danger. The mental strain this film inflicts is brilliantly paralleled through its orchestral score provided by Danny Elfman. Through a combination of stressful string instruments and foreboding horns, Elfman clearly depicts our main character's inner psyche.
Mission: Impossible is a psychological thriller, and the main person subject to this mental warfare, aside from the audience, is agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise). He watches his entire IMF (Impossible Mission Force) get assassinated, gets framed for it, is then disavowed from the agency, goes rogue to prove his innocence and maintains a charismatic performance throughout it all. Since the film illustrates Ethan as a near invincible man, the audience does not worry whether he will die or not but whether he will lose his mind or not. Ethan is pushed to the edge of his sanity, hearing his boss call him a traitor, living in paranoia as a fugitive and doubting the trustworthiness of everyone he encounters. It's compelling watching Ethan take all these mental blows, and it's exhilarating seeing how he overcomes them all.
In Mission: Impossible, unlike in most action films, eliminating one's enemies is not as important as understanding their motivations. The greatest weapon someone can have is information. This is directly illustrated through this film's primary McGuffin, the Noc list (a list of all IMF agents). Aside from Ethan Hunt, Jon Voight's character, Jim Phelps, is after this list. Through Voight's subdued yet sinister performance, Jim Phelps, hides the facts and clouds Ethan's vision, in order to twist Ethan's mind to follow him and take down the head of the IMF.
While this film is a thrill watching, David Koepp's screenplay does not provide much depth. What this film lacks in depth, though, it makes up for in substance. The Mission: Impossible series features some of the best set pieces in cinema, and the first film features two of my favorites. The fist is the black vault, which creates suspense through its lack of sound. Any sound could get Ethan caught and prevent him from getting the Noc list. On top of this Ethan cannot let even one drop of water touch the floor, or else the pressure sensors will trigger. The genius behind this scene goes beyond what I am able to type in this post. The second is the high speed train at the end of the film, which is when Ethan confronts Jim Phelps. From the standoff of hidden identities on the inside of the train to the prevented escape on the chaotic outside of the train this is a great climax. Mission: Impossible is a film that leaves audiences, myself included, more than satisfied, and ready to experience Ethan Hunt's next big caper.
Mission: Impossible II
Directed by John Woo
1.5/5
I encountered John Woo's Mission: Impossible II for the first time, when I decided I would marathon all of the Mission: Impossible sequels in one night. I borrowed all of them from the library, and then watched them in order (from the second to the fourth one). It was back to back to back action and thrills and it all started with a misstep. Mission: Impossible II is easily the worst Mission: Impossible movie, and I doubt another one will come along and claim its title.
In Mission: Impossible II Ethan Hunt's previous near invincibility gets cranked up to absurd levels. The movie begins with Tom Cruise dangling from a cliff in Arizona. There is no reason for him to be doing this. He's just dangerously free climbing for fun. He then gets a mission from a pair of sunglasses to track down the deadly Chimera virus, and then those sunglasses slow mo' explode. From there on most audiences would assume this movie's ridiculousness would just keep going, but this movie plays an odd balancing game between being way too fast to handle and unbearably boringly slow. There is over an hour of mind numbingly sluggish scenes, and nearly an hour of jaw dropping insanity. This off kilter balance makes the screenplay, mainly concerning Ethan Hunt's forgettable romance with the blandly seductive Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), practically unentertaining.
This movie's main entertaining aspect is its overly explosive climax. This movie's conclusion features one, two, three (I lost count) more than 30 different explosions. Each of them does no damage to Cruise's body, face or excessively long hair. What makes these explosive action moments worse is the cringe worthy amount of early 2000's slow motion and ratchet shots making up these moments (The movie also uses this technique during its slow moments, making Mission: Impossible II feel less like an action thriller and more like an overblown disorienting music video.). Nearly every time an explosion is about to go off, the camera zooms in so fast right onto Cruises' face, and then it slows down so the audience can see all of his hair blowing in the wind. It is possible the only reason Cruise has so much hair in this movie is for these slow motion shots.
Perhaps director John Woo made the movie way too over-stylized on purpose, but this does not mean this movie's direction is enjoyable. Some of John Woo's directorial choices are engaging, such as how he constructs a final bloody physical confrontation between Ethan Hunt and the movie's bad guy, but most of Woo's choices are boggling. One of John Woo's signature directorial choices is having flying doves in his movies, and he floods Mission: Impossible II's climax with these signature birds. It becomes a game of seek and find, in order to determine how many doves there could possibly be. Even the DVD menu is infested with the doves. "What's that winged creature behind the bend. It's another dove!"
While there are interesting, if not completely bombastic, moments in this movie, Mission: Impossible II is a tiresome and explosive mess, and it made me incredibly unsure about what type of movie I would encounter next in this series.
Mission: Impossible III
Directed by J.J. Abrams
2.5/5
Immediately after I finished Mission: Impossible II, I yelled at a wall for a bit. I expected the next DVD, Mission: Impossible III, to be bad, if not worse than the second one. I had so little hope for this movie that once I pressed play on the DVD, I put in a microwave dinner to begin consuming during the movie. I had my eyes off the screen.
The screen went dark and silent followed by loud noises and Tom Cruise shouting. The next thing I heard was Phillip Seymore Hoffman's voice, as he brutally interrogated and tortured an already captured Ethan Hunt. Hoffman counts down, as he threatens to blow out a woman's brains, unless Ethan answers the question, "Where's the 'Rabbit's Foot'?" Each of Hoffman's next numbers evokes a new emotional response from Ethan, ranging from fear, to terror, remorse, despair, bargaining and finally shock and horror. (I think the scene was far more tense, because I didn't hear what number Hoffman was going to count down to.) Finally, Hoffman says "10" and fires.
From there the movie begins, and it never lets up. 40 minutes later I remembered my microwaved dinner. 80 minutes later I could breathe again, because the credits were rolling. When I could breathe again, I reflected on the film. My initial thought, "It was the best Mission: Impossible film." The next day, I had to ask myself, "What was so great about Mission: Impossible III again?".
This film's absolute greatest aspect is its characters. Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, and he's an IMF training instructor called back to the field. The only trainee he has recommended for field experience, Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), has been kidnapped by arms dealer Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Ethan plans on rescuing Lindsey and taking down Owen. He's got his best team at his side, including the ever cool and confident hacker Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), the divine and daring Zhen Lei (Maggie Q) and someone else who was there (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Watching the comradery between this team is intriguing, but there are plenty more characters in this piece. Inside the IMF there is the no bull director Brassell (Lawrence Fishburne), Ethan's good friend John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) and technical expert and frantic desk worker Benji (Simon Pegg). On top of all this, Ethan is getting married to his beautiful civilian lover Julia (Michelle Monaghan). It is thrilling watching these characters interact.
Other than this, there is little in this film that matters. None of the set pieces seem extraordinary (except for the Rabbit's foot heist of which the audience does not see). The action scenes are cool, but they all feel similar (Ethan grabs a gun, along with some other people, and then they shoot things, while the camera spins around them). The villain is interesting, but his sometime lack of composure, can make it difficult for some audiences to truly fear him. This adds up to Mission: Impossible III being a cool film with little impact. It features unique characters, intriguing dialogue and cool moments, but none of it comes together in a way that makes the film greater than the sum of its parts.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Directed by Brad Bird
2/5
After my fantastic experience watching the first film in the series, I watched the latest one on DVD. I borrowed the DVD from the library, but unfortunately the DVD copy I had was busted. The best I could do was watch some of it, and openly make fun of the movie's most ludicrous moments. The first time I experienced the movie in full was during my Mission: Impossible sequel marathon (it was the last one of the night). Despite the fact my second viewing featured a more linear narrative, the movie still did not feel coherent and ultimately silly. I didn't like it, and I was having a hard time understanding why other reviewers claimed this movie was the best one in the series.
The movie is about Ethan Hunt and his team of disavowed agents doing some not so secret operations, in order to prove they did not bomb the Kremlin. Some of their operations include sneaking into the Kremlin, free climbing the tallest building in the world and infiltrating an expensive party. Amongst this movie's action scenes there is one standing out above the rest. There is an exhilarating chase scene in a sandstorm, which spans the course of Ethan pursuing someone on foot to speeding after him in a car and ending with a climactic car crash. The scene is complimented by exquisite stunt work by Tom Cruise. It is also cinematically topped off by a hazy orange ascetic getting darker as the action increases and brighter as Ethan gets closer to nabbing his target.
Aside from this scene and some impressive stunt work, most of the action is nonsensical. Starting with an overly comedic and unnecessary prison escape scene, leading into a ridiculously long CGI fuse which is also unnecessary, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol demonstrates its desire for action and comedy and its tendency to lean towards comedy. This would be something that could not only be overlooked but also embraced, if the film did not also try to take itself seriously.
One main message this film attempts communicating is how gadgets are not the key to success, but a strong team ensures victory. This is shown by how most of Ethan's gadgets fail to work properly and yet he and his team are able to achieve victory. This message, however, contradicts itself, because there are multiple gadgets, which if they had failed would have not only made Ethan fail his mission (such as his GPS tracker in the sandstorm) but also could have caused the death of Ethan's team (such as Benji's magnetic rig, which stopped Agent Brandt, played by Jeremy Renner, from being sliced by a fan). In addition to this there are also gadgets in this film which are completely unnecessary (such as the screen Ethan and Benji sneak behind in a hallway when they could have hidden themselves in the doorways, a sticker device which swapped the room numbers in a hotel, when Ethan and his team could have done that themselves and Benji's inflatable third arm which he used to fool his opponents into thinking he was not using his arm, when he could have just been using his arm all along).
It all adds up to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol being a fun movie featuring some rather silly antics. There can be enjoyment found in watching it, but it is not for everyone.
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
4/5
My first experience watching this film was not during my Mission: Impossible sequel marathon. I borrowed this film from the library, when it came out on DVD and Blu-ray. I watched it by myself. Immediately after I finished watching it, I wanted to share it with my friends.
Ethan Hunt returns to take on his most dangerous mission yet. He's going to take down the Syndicate (an anti IMF set on controlling the world). Ethan, as always, is not alone. He's teamed up with Benji, once again played with comedic genius by Simon Pegg, Luther Stickell, played with collected intimidating charm by Ving Rhames, and William Brandt, portrayed by the intrepid and confident Jeremy Renner. There mission, should they choose to accept it, will be full of danger, espionage and will be unlike anything this team has ever faced. This is because Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation has everything Mission: Impossible film fans have come to expect from the franchise and more. It has the suspense, incredible set pieces and psychological tension from Mission: Impossible, the bloody and explosive combat from Mission: Impossible II, the team comradery, well paced dialogue and unrelenting action from Mission: Impossible III, the over the top stunt work and entertaining comedy from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and it's all wrapped up and delivered in one great and thrilling action adventure film.
Not only does Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation feature the best aspects from its predecessors, it also has its own unique flare and style. This is primarily brought about through the presence of wild card Isla Faust, played sensationally well by Rebecca Ferguson. No matter where Ethan goes to track down the Syndicate, she is right behind him. It's unclear whether she is covering his back or waiting to strike him in it. All that is clear is the extra intrigue and depth her character gives this film is greatly appreciated.
Aside from all of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation's great aspects, this film has two minor yet obvious flaws. The first is the same every previous film has, the plot is clearly intentionally complicated with the purpose of placing Tom Cruise in action scenarios. Once the action kicks in, though, all of this can be easily overlooked. A hindrance on this film's enjoyment which is hard overlooking, is this film's main antagonist, Lane, played by a whispery and slightly fiendish Sean Harris. Though he is threatening, he does not instill fear. He's conniving, but not enough that most audiences will want to see him lose. Since most audiences want to see him humiliated, it is a good thing he has little screen time, and his demise is exactly what audiences (or at least myself) were hoping would occur.
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is a great stand alone film, full of excellent performances, suspenseful spy missions, adventurous set pieces, explosive action and impressive intrigue. From the beginning where Tom Cruise clings to an airplane, to a suspense filled night at the opera, to sneaking into a heavily guarded underwater vault and to beyond where this takes him, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is sure to thrill and entertain. It can easily be thought of as the best entry in the series, and it is my favorite.
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