That’s about it. Indeed the MI films seem more like an animated version of classic Bond posters than actual stories. Enjoyable enough on their own terms, but with next to no substance or character to make out a recognisable tale. It’s all one long, blurry circus act, a sequence of stunts and fights in search of a meaning.
That’s not even a criticism, simply the way popcorn cinema developed. The Marvel output is hardly different and only more distinctive for its costumes and the colour scheme of its different sets.
I never cared for it, since it made Jim Phelps a villain. That’s like waiting decades for a Star Trek movie and then making Jim Kirk a Klingon spy. Plus it irked me that they took a concept that had always been about teamwork and turned it into a solo vanity piece for Cruise. I was not a fan of the guy in those days, and this struck me as an act of insufferable ego.
I also didn’t dig the CGI-ridden finale with the chopper in the chunnel, which strained credulity past the breaking point. When the camera zooms in to reveal Jean Reno, I thought it would have been more appropriate if it were Wile E. Coyote at the controls.
Things got a lot better later in the series when they transitioned to practical effects and real stunts.
The second one is secure at the bottom of the barrel, but I’d put the DePalma entry pretty far down, maybe second to last. Fallout is the best, but they do tend to blend together in memory.
My experience as well. The first movie and GHOST PROTOCOL are the only ones whose plots I remember. Once McQuarrie takes over, a narrative sameness comes in, though the films are well-crafted.
The series is on Paramount+, so I might give them a whirl, and see which ones hold my interest until the end.
I only remember the first two very well, but after those… I even would haven’t known how many there were if not the title here wouldn’t had 7 & 8 in it.
There actually is an interesting development of Hunt‘s saviour complex which forces him to abandon his private life and marriage, only to threaten his new family unit the same way, making him choose people instead of a mission‘s objective (twice, in FALLOUT, with that terrific scene involving the Parisian traffic cop) and risking everything as a consequence. In DR he can’t save Ilsa but rescues Grace who becomes part of the team whose members have given up their lives to protect others - a perpetuum mobile of guilt and the desperate need for redemption.
Also, McQuarrie manages to connect plot strands from all the movies more cleverly than the Craig Bonds did, I must admit.
These M:I movies, especially the McQuarrie directed, are much more interesting than they often seem on the surface.
I do understand that fans of the tv show were disappointed when dePalma turned Phelps into a villain, by the way. But it is a quite ingenious and courageous way to go against expectations.
But I would have loved M to have become Blofeld‘s helper, too.
Yes, turning Jim Phelps into the villain is blasphemous. In the past, I’ve often used filmmakers making a Star Trek film and having James T. Kirk be the bad guy as an analogy myself. It’s just not right and goes contrary to what the shows and characters are all about. Additionally, that plot device does take the original Mission: Impossible film down a couple of pegs. It’s a good film otherwise, but the Phelps as bad guy really hurts it.
The Mission: Impossible series did seem to start out as an ego project for Tom Cruise–especially the second one where there was virtually no team element which is also totally contrary to the Mission: Impossible series. It wasn’t until Mission: Impossible III and especially Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol that the team element really entered the series and that, combined with Cruise’s amazing death-defying stunts, have elevated the M:I series to what it is now.
Anyway, my rankings of the series are:
Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (#4 in series)
Mission: Impossible: Fallout (#6)
Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (#5)
Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 (#7)
Mission: Impossible (#1)
Mission: Impossible III (#3)
Mission: Impossible II (#2)
The top three films are razor thin close. Then comes the next two. And M:I 3 is clearly above M:I 2. M:I 3 might only be #6, but it did right the M:I ship and since then, it’s been full steam ahead. M:I 2 is the only bad film in the series.
I’ve been reflecting how important TFR actually is to me. I watched the 1996 film a lot on VHS and never missed an instalment on the big screen since M:I-2. I thought the franchise was done after the third film, but then Cruise returned and went on one of the most incredibly consistent runs in recent memory. This really is the end of an era. That 7 year old boy inside me will be sitting in the cinema this Saturday.
Something I’ve always liked about Ethan is at the core he’s not a caricatured action star. He doesn’t actually want to do these death-defying things. But he does them anyway because others need him to do it. So he does it, and knows it’s possible for him to misjudge or make a mistake. That’s captured effectively before the motorcycle jump in DR.
THR (always hating Cruise) dismisses a lot of the film, citing dialogue about The Entity as silly (I think their examples are examples for pretty good dialogue), but Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman (who is IMO very often extremely smug about everything) loves the film:
My rewatch sessions: The dePalma mission and the Woo mission.
De Palma:
surprisingly conventional and - dare I say it - pedestrian, save the Langley break-in (at the 55 min mark) and the train and helicopter chase finale.
I remember all the ridicule about a non-sensical and unexplainable plot. But really, it is totally clear and simple: the „Skyfall“-list heist at the beginning was fake so the CIA could find the mole - Phelps knew and killed the team so Hunt seemed to look suspicious - Hunt interests the mysterious Max to pay him to steal the list after all, in order to find out who the mole really is - he does find out that it is Phelps, with his wife and Leon helping - he alerts the CIA in order to capture Phelps and Max before the list is transmitted to foreign intelligence.
And the outcry of so many critics about „the lying flashback!“ - What? When Hunt meets with Phelps he already suspects him, so we see the events of that night as he imagines them (correctly, only at first he does not want to believe that Claire is part of the plan, so he imagines Phelps exploding the car bomb himself). Easy.
Woo:
the whole film is very attractively lensed
I love Anthony Hopkins as the IMF boss making fun of this not being „mission difficult“
Cruise has visibly become a better actor since the first film, unfortunately he does not get to show a lot of that. Still, his action acting starts here.
I love that free climbing sequence, and the motorcycle chase is fantastic
unfortunately, the story is not interesting, the final fight goes on and on and on (a malaise starting at the end of the 90‘s), and Woo‘s style with the constant slow mo, pigeons flying and two handed firing of pistols is repetitive and boring
Whatever the case, the change suits Cruise’s Ethan, whose abilities have grown so progressively super since the series began in 1996 they seem quasi-mystical.
Logic isn’t the reason movies like this exist or why we go to them, and one of the sustaining pleasures of the “Mission: Impossible” series has been its commitment to its own outrageousness.
“Final Reckoning” is flat-out ridiculous, but it’s a model example of blockbuster entertainment at its most highly polished, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, despite its clichés, extravagant violence and gung-ho militarism. Among other things, there is something reassuring in the sight of a diverse group of male and female employees from both the government and military ready to sacrifice all for the greater good.
Male-driven action movies often have a savior complex, with heroes who are beaten and brutalized only at last to rise vengefully triumphant. “Final Reckoning” leans hard into that familiar theme — the team faces betrayal, the fate of everyone on Earth is in Ethan’s hands — which gives the movie a quasi-religious dimension. That’s weird, no doubt, but there’s something plaintive about Ethan’s fight this time because it echoes the urgent struggles of workers in the entertainment industry (and everywhere else) to prevent their replacement by artificial intelligence.
I would not say it is pedestrian. De Palma has great fun playing with the conventions of spy movies. But he also needed a hit (which he has spoken about), so this is De Palma playing with conventions in a milder key. He is making nice with Hollywood money and stars, but still providing edgy pleasure.
As David_M points out, the film
along with eliminating an IMF team in the first act, killing the female lead in the last (wife murdered by husband), and making the villain’s motivation the bad retirement plan offered by his company.
This is not De Palma critique on the level of BODY DOUBLE or FEMME FATALE, but the film does offer more than is found in most Hollywood films.
I remember this too and I never understood it. It is one of many reasons I don’t pay too much attention to critics when they are critquing a film. I tend to pay more attention when they heap praise.
It may keep us on our toes, I guess, but it’s pretty much the Hollywood mindset at its worst: Hey, here’s a property with a built in fan base and name recognition, let’s make a movie about it. First step: jettison absolutely everything the fans liked about the original and start from scratch. (Keep the theme song, though; the theme song is cool).
It reminds me of Danny Bilson’s story about bringing The Flash to TV in the early 90s: the studio paid for the rights to the character because they wanted a superhero in the wake of the Batman movie’s success and figured they had a built-in fan base in the form of comic readers. So what’s the first thing pitched by the studio suits? “Running fast is cool but the costume thing is a little silly, can’t we just put him in a red track suit?” Bilson’s answer: “They did it already and called it the Six Million Dollar Man.”
Interestingly, with Koepp working for dePalma and Towne for Cruise/Wagner, it is a wonder that a functioning script emerged, but apparent that it wasn’t a great one.