When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.
While the sequences that Mission: Impossible is most famous for (the ceiling-descent and train-top) are truly thrilling, absolutely everything in between these scenes is obvious and uninspired. Rarely can a movie have you so completely engaged one minute, and then immediately back to checking the time the next.
An important film, pop-culturally speaking, but not a very good one.
Final rating: - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.
When I first saw this movie I did not like it at all. My main gripe with the movie was (and is) that it did not feel like a Mission Impossible movie.
Spoilers ahead! In the original series the team always succeeded, at least in the episodes I watched. However, the movie starts off with a big failure. Then to make matters worse we learn that Mr. Phelps, one of the original lead characters, is actually a traitor. I was so disappointed!
Now when I watched it for the second time with my son I actually liked it a lot more. I still think it is sad that the script writers felt they had to introduce all these chock elements but trying to look past those this is a pretty good movie. I still do not think it is truly a Mission Impossible movie i...
Well done spy/caper thriller with Tom Cruise and an eye-rolling Scooby-Doo element
The Impossible Missions Force has a mission at a Prague gala concerning a CIA non-official cover list, but it doesnt go as planned. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Clair Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart) then team-up with two disavowed agents (Ving Rhames and Jean Reno) to steal the real NOC list at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, before going to London for further thrills involving the TGV train to Paris. Jon Voight and Henry Czerny are on hand as leaders of IMF while Vanessa Redgrave plays an arms dealer and Kristin Scott Thomas an IMF agent.
Mission: Impossible (1996) was loosely inspired by the TV series of the late 60s/early 70s and started the su...
Mission: Impossible thrives on a more localized story, trading massive stunts and action set pieces for a greater focus on spycraft, theft, and espionage.
Mission: Impossible operates on a much smaller scale than its successors and benefits from a more contained story. The action and suspense are more personal, and the danger more intimate than in later installments. The first entry in the Mission: Impossible film franchise blends spy thriller, murder mystery, and heist movie into one heart-pounding and compelling film. Paranoia runs rampant as agent Ethan Hunt is betrayed time and time again while trying to uncover who murdered his fellow agents and prevent the murder of many more. Mission: Impossible is iconic with its classic hang...
Man, when this came out I was thinking that we are going to have another James Bond franchise only with an American and I was super stoked about it.
Unfortunately I got my wish. This is really the only one worth watching and M:I2 just destroyed the series that didn't have the sense to die.
But....what you have here is 3 Days of the Condor, directed by De Palma, with lots of action.
No, I'm not joking, it's really 3 Days of the Condor with less plot and tension and more action and shooting. And Cruise instead of Redford, which actually is a pretty even swap from one generation to another...only Redford is still the better actor and Cruise only really acts when he wants to.
So, yeah, if you saw 3 Days of the Condor you know what i...
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I'm not the biggest fan of the diminutive Mr Cruise - but I have to hand it to him here. Brian de Palma has created an end-to-end action adventure and he is superb in it. He brings oodles of charisma to the screen as he ("Ethan Hunt") has to recover from a disastrous mission and build a team to discover not only who betrayed them, but to obtain a top secret list of American overseas operatives (i.e. spies) before it falls into enemy hands spelling doom for all concerned. What ensues is a fast-paced, well constructed movie that moves along cohesively with plenty going on - loads of tension, suspicion, nobody knowing whom to trust coupled with plenty of exciting stunts and a classy performance from Vanessa Redgrave bringing some gravitas to t...