Certification. PG
Running Time. 1 hour 50 mins
Director. Brian De Palma
Cast. Emmanuelle Béart, Tom Cruise, Henry Czerny, Emilio Estevez, Vanessa Redgrave, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jon Voight.
Inspired by the television series created by Bruce Geller that first aired in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mission: Impossible was set to be one of the major summer blockbusters of 1996, alongside the likes of Twentieth Century Fox's Independence Day, Walt Disney Studios' The Rock and Warner Brothers' Twister. I remember the excitement surrounding the cinematic release of Mission: Impossible, but fans of the television series expecting a faithful translation were sorely disappointed. Except for a couple of hat tips to the original television series, Mission: Impossible stands alone as an autonomous entity. Thankfully, Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme was one of these acknowledgements.
Nine years before Mission: Impossible director Brian De Palma employed a similar tactic when adapting The Untouchables for the big screen. Borrow on the legacy of a much loved television series as a pretext for a series of loosely strung together set pieces. In The Untouchables, one of most memorable set pieces is the climatic shootout in Chicago Union Station featuring a runaway baby carriage tumbling down the station's stairs [reminiscent of a scene from Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 film, The Battleship Potemkin]. In Mission: Impossible, the equivalent is the audacious break-in at the CIA Headquarters, in Langley. The breach must be conducted in absolute silence, with no elevation in ambient temperature, and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) must avoid even the slightest contact with the sensor-laden floor. This elaborate premise plays to Brian De Palma's strengths as a director. The result is electrifying.
But beyond this memorable set piece the film fails to produce much more in the way of excitement. The plot is predictable and generates little intrigue. The film's climax is preposterous and has not aged well. Worse still, the late breaking plot twist undermines the character of the entire television series. It is all too easy to imagine why Peter Graves allegedly refused to reprise his role of Jim Phelps.
Mission: Impossible substitutes over-the-top action heroics for the intelligent espionage source material, and as a result serves only as a show reel for Tom Cruise's James Bond audition. On this evidence, it is a role he is clearly unsuited for.
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