Mission Impossible Series rewatch/reviews
here's my thoughts after doing a Mission Impossible full series rewatch
Prior to this, I had seen Ghost Protocol in the theatre and again on cable. Same with the original. I had seen part 2 and 3 in the theatre, but don’t think I ever rewatched them. I had not yet seen Rogue Nation, but wanted to see the whole series before watching Fallout. As a kid I watched the tv series on occasion (the 1988 revival) and have some vague memories of it.
The thing I liked about the tv show, was how the team worked together to create an intricate deceptions to accomplish their mission. I remember being disappointed when the movie took the route of a more straight forward action movie.
Spoilers below BTW
Mission Impossible
The killing of the team at the start of the movie is so jarring, that it really pulls the rug out from under you. Not really a great way to start things if you were coming into this as a fan of the show. (which is less of an issue now, than it was back in 1996) The iconic Langley break in scene (dropping in on wires) still holds up, as does the high speed train/helicopter chase and the face-off scene in the aquarium restaurant. “You’ve never SEEN me very upset!” The computer hacking stuff is awful. People really didn’t know shit about computers back then. The name of the contact is “Max”... Cruise thinks for a second and tries “max.com” LOL Tom Cruise looks like he is 18 in this. Still overall it is a pretty watchable movie really entertaining start to a solid action franchise. Brian DePalma knows what he's doing. Solid B.
Mission Impossible II
Thandie Newton is so hot. Oh my god. The way they fall in love (their cars doing a slow-motion dance on the edge of the cliff is beyond cheezy and there is no chemistry between her and Cruise). This movie is so clearly dated (2000), with all the attempts at being cool. Tom Cruise’s shaggy boy band surfer dude hair, throwing the xtreme-sports sunglasses in slowmotion, Limp Bizkit theme song. I admire their courage to take the movie in a completely new direction with a hot hong kong action director. I like John Woo, but he can be kind of corny, and this is him at his John Wooeyist. Just John Wooing it up, with doves flying at the camera because John Woo. Generic Euro trash villains. The overuse of the face mask gimmick is played more like a magic trick/super power here.. where anyone can instantly become anyone else with no effort or preparation. They copy the the iconic wire drop scene again, but this time it’s followed up with a classic John Woo gun-fu double pistol shoot out. Also Tom Cruise has a bunch of kung fu powers which he never had before, (and never has again) such as doing flipping axe kicks onto everyone he comes across. The climactic motorcycle chase at the end, was the main thing I remembered from this movie years later, and it is still pretty good. Lots of front wheelies, and shooting cars in the gas tank so they explode. Overall, this is probably the dumbest of the series, but it’s still fun to watch. I give it a C.
Mission Impossible III
JJ Abrams in the middle of his heat from Lost, makes a confidant directorial debut. The movie cold opens on one of the best scenes (from near the end) With a very beat up Cruise breaking down after being threatened with the death of his wife by a very menacing Philip Seymore Hoffman who absolutely owns this movie. We then rewind back to Ethan being retired and settling down domestic bliss. He gets reactivated to rescue Kerri Russell. The factory rescue/helicopter chase though the wind turbines in this first set piece is really good, and the way they kill Keri Russell is just savage. All in all- the movie is off to a good start. Ethan learns from a secret message that there’s a mole and he can’t trust his bosses (harking back to the first movie) They go on spyjinks to capture Philip Seymore Hoffman, which is a lot of good fun. This is when you see how badass Hoffman is, getting hung face first out of the bottom of plane, he still is intent on finding out. “What’s your name? Do you have wife or girlfriend? I’m going to find her, and I’m going to hurt her. Then I’m going to kill you in front of her.” So badass. Immediately afterwards, the mole breaks Hoffman out and he makes good on his threat to find Ethan’s wife, and kill her unless he delivers “rabbits foot” The plot is pretty much irrelevant, to the point that they never even bother to say what the “rabbits foot” is. It’s just pure macguffin. He goes to Shanghai so that they can do this movie’s version of the wire drop scene that the first two movies did. Except this time, its a wire swing, onto the slanted roof of another skyscraper with guards goofily poking their heads out of the windows like a videogame. Cruise delivers the rabbits foot and we finally get back to the opening scene, only to get the very disappointing and predictable switcheroo where they didn’t really kill his wife. (Would have been better if they did!). From here, the movie is running on fumes, with lots of running through the streets of Shanghai, a nonsense physical brawl between out-of-shape hoffman and superhero Cruise, and a lame shoot out where his wife gets to kill the mole! C+
Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol
Brad Bird from the Incredibles, does a great job on this one! The movie moves at a great pace and each piece is a lot of fun to watch. The moscow prison escape is great. As is the Kremlin break-in. The comedy is a nice touch that had been sorely missing from the previous films. I even enjoyed the way Cruise escaped from the hospital. The high point is clearly the Dubai tower climbing scene, and the subsequent scheme and sandstorm chase are also great! I loved the failing glove sticking to the window later, and how Cruise slowly turns to see the approaching sandstorm. The film gets a little slow towards the end, but the finale in the car park is okay. Doesn’t quite live up to all the great stuff that came before, but it is fine. A well deserved A.
Mission Impossible 5 Rogue Nation
How many stories are they going to do where Ethan has been disavowed or the IMF is disbanded? The set pieces with him hanging on the side of the airplane and swimming into the underwater bunker are pretty cool, even if the latter one made no goddamn sense and the former one feels very tacked on with not much connection to the rest of the movie and the story telling to get into this stunt is handled rather clumsily. All the whiplashing double agent spy stuff was fine, but the story was a bit meandering and it felt long. I thought the motorcycle chase was executed well, even if it did feel like it was a bit of an obligatory check box. I’m glad to see Ving Rhames back with a bigger role this time. All in all, it was fine but nothing really stood out to me. Probably didn’t help that I was a bit tired when I watched this. C
Comments
Mission Impossible
The killing of the team at the start of the movie is so jarring, that it really pulls the rug out from under you. Not really a great way to start things if you were coming into this as a fan of the show. (which is less of an issue now, than it was back in 1996) The iconic Langley break in scene (dropping in on wires) still holds up, as does the high speed train/helicopter chase and the face-off scene in the aquarium restaurant. “You’ve never SEEN me very upset!” The computer hacking stuff is awful. People really didn’t know shit about computers back then. The name of the contact is “Max”... Cruise thinks for a second and tries “max.com” LOL Tom Cruise looks like he is 18 in this. Still overall it is a pretty watchable movie. Solid B.
Great reviews, I enjoyed reading them all, and mostly agree on all movies. For the first movie I have a slight nitpick with your phrasing not syncing with your score;
You finished by saying that "it's a pretty watchable movie". How can a pretty watchable movie get almost the best rating? A pretty watchable movie sounds like you're describing a movie that is so-so/mediocre/okay, but not great. But B+ is a very, very good score. It's almost an A.
Do you see where I'm coming from?
Mission Impossible
The killing of the team at the start of the movie is so jarring, that it really pulls the rug out from under you. Not really a great way to start things if you were coming into this as a fan of the show. (which is less of an issue now, than it was back in 1996) The iconic Langley break in scene (dropping in on wires) still holds up, as does the high speed train/helicopter chase and the face-off scene in the aquarium restaurant. “You’ve never SEEN me very upset!” The computer hacking stuff is awful. People really didn’t know shit about computers back then. The name of the contact is “Max”... Cruise thinks for a second and tries “max.com” LOL Tom Cruise looks like he is 18 in this. Still overall it is a pretty watchable movie. Solid B.
Great reviews, I enjoyed reading them all, and mostly agree on all movies. For the first movie I have a slight nitpick with your phrasing not syncing with your score;
You finished by saying that "it's a pretty watchable movie". How can a pretty watchable movie get almost the best rating? A pretty watchable movie sounds like you're describing a movie that is so-so/mediocre/okay, but not great. But B+ is a very, very good score. It's almost an A.
Do you see where I'm coming from?
Good point. I revised it.
I was really excited to see this one. I had heard good things about it and the trailers looked cool. I was also familiar with some of the behind the scenes drama, such as Tom Cruise breaking his leg while doing a roof top jumping stunt, or Henry Cavill having to leave in the middle of filming this to go be "Superman with a mustache" for some pick-up shots in the Justice League movie. This movie felt like a really good ACTION movie, but not quite as much like a "Mission Impossible" movie. They never really set up the impossible mission that would require this crazy plan they had to pull off. Yes, they were trying to track down the plutonium, and nab Lane, and there was crazy action stuff happening all throughout the movie, but it was usually them being forced into a situation and having to react to it, rather than planning and executing an over the top scheme. Of course there was the prerequisite motorcycle chase (Tom Cruise must have that in his contract). The fight and chase scenes were pretty intense, and the final helicopter chase/showdown in Kashmir had some nail-biting action. Overall, its pretty good. B
I think III might be my favorite since it kind of established the formula for the rest of them. And I say that as a HUGE DePalma fan.