At this point, the Mission: Impossible movie franchise is more than 20 years old. While there are older film franchises out there, Star Wars and the Planet of the Apes spring to mind, what’s different with Mission: Impossible is that over the decades while some actors have come and gone the lead is still played by the same actor — Tom Cruise.
Released in 1996 and directed by Brian DePalma, Mission: Impossible was one of the early movies to bring classic TV series to the big screen. In the mid to late 1990s there were a spate of TV series to films like The Brady Bunch Movie and Lost in Space, some of which were successful and some of which were forgettable, but the one film series that’s still going today is Mission: Impossible.
That first movie featured Cruise as Ethan Hunt, a member of the “IMF” (Impossible Missions Force) that acts as a covert spy agency who, if they’re ever caught, their bosses will, famously, “deny all knowledge of (their) actions.” And, of course, things go wrong and Hunt, along with what’s left of his team and a few ex-IMF members have to figure out why their cover was blown and colleagues killed.
Most of the first movie deals with Hunt trying to get a list of all the active IMF agents and sell it to the bad guys, but not let the bad guys get full access to the list, to get to the bottom of this mystery.
I liked most of the Mission: Impossible sequels that followed but as I went back to do some research for writing this article was surprised to see just how different the newer movies are from the first few.
In Mission: Impossible there’s a few big action scenes. The first is when the mission goes bad at an embassy in Europe. The second is Hunt and his new team breaking into the CIA headquarters in Washington, DC to steal the list that features a stunt with Cruise suspended from the ceiling via wires since the room the list is in is so secure simply touching the ground will set off an alarm. And finally, there’s an action scene with Hunt on and on top of a high speed train inside the Chunnel as he fights the person who murdered most of his team while at the same time battling a helicopter that’s also flying inside the tunnel.
Honestly, the first Mission: Impossible is more of a 1990s techno-thriller in line with The Hunt for Red October than a pure action film like the series has become. The newer films, like most action movies these days, seem to instead be built around a four or five BIG action scenes that connected together with a bit of story.
For example, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) starts with Hunt hanging onto the side of a plane for dear-life as it takes off, him chasing some bad guys on a mountain road via in a motorcycle chase as well as an underwater scene with Hunt trapped inside a piece of machinery as he has to do something or other.
The craziest thing is that the most intense stunts in the film with the airplane and motorcycles were actually performed by Cruise himself and not a double.
But as for the story of Rogue Nation? I really couldn’t tell you that. I know there was an evil Mission: Impossible force but other than the amazing action scenes that’s about all I can remember — and I own the movie and have seen it a few times.
Now comes the latest Mission: Impossible Fallout out July 27. This time too the movie features Cruise (now nearly as old as Jon Voight was when he played the senior “I stay back at the hotel while the young whipper-snappers go out and do all the dangerous things” Jim Phelps) really piloting a helicopter treacherously close to the side of a mountain and halo parachute jumping where he jumps from a great height but waits until he’s almost to the ground to open his ‘chute.
My question is will the story of Fallout be as interesting or as memorable as the original? Probably not. Will I be seeing Fallout? You bet’cha.
