Mission: Impossible: Review By Bawnian©-Dexeus

Mission Impossible is a 1996 action thriller film.

Directed by: Brian De Palma.

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Redgrave and Marcel Iureş.

IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is under investigation being suspected as a mole in the unofficial agency. It is his mission, should he choose to accept it, to find the actually spy responsible for the disloyalty.

You can always tell the age of a movie by the technology available and the surrounding modes of transportation. No doubt 15 years have been a very long time. Everyone was so young back then, even the old people. Time may have passed by, but the missions have remained the same: get in, get out, this message will self-destruct in 5 seconds. I remember back when I saw this movie. I didn't know what was going on half the time. I was young and all I remembered was a man hanging by a wire and gum.

What I never noticed before that I do now after viewing it for the third time in my lifetime was how stylistic this first movie was crafted. De Palma is known for his psychological thrillers and graphic violence; Scarface and Carrie a clear example of that. M:I displays quite a bunch of POV shots and canted angles to portray his characters and his thrills. But thrills are what make M:I the movie it is and the classic we know today. As we enter the first 20 minutes of what seems to be the first mission of the franchise, that we are aware of, the film treats us to very cool gadgets even by today's standards as to how a gadget should look and feel like, a plan, a point man (Ethan Hunt), a hacker, a handful of sexy starlets to distract the target, and of course, the use of the face mask. We see everything that a mission is supposed to be like: either successful or plan B, something goes wrong and the rest plays out by ear. We get death, explosions, suspense and betrayal, in one combo meal, hold the fries.

We take a journey as Ethan Hunt fighting through betrayal and onto the second mission to fined the Macguffin, the Nock List, and discover the real mole that disavowed most of the IMF branch. In enters Jean Reno, Vign Rhymes and the ever so lovely Emmanuelle Béart to steal the list from a vault as impenetrable as Fort Nox...at Langley, Virginia. Now, this was back in 1996, and when your ears devour the audio of this mission, you might chuckle a bit. The way they promoted the security levels around the list, if I recall, "State of the Art Technology". A term quite overused but never old and ideal for these types of films. I mean, every year we get a new security system that cannot be hacked in every sense of the word.

The biggest thrill is when Tom cruise is trying to steal the list, and marks as one of the most intense thrilling, suspenseful sequences of the past decade and a half. It presented us the awesome moment where Jean Reno practically lets go of Cruise that he was a mere inch away from touching the hot zone. An iconic moment that can be easily identified and a singularity to redefine the thrill of being a spy.

The Actors:

Tom Cruise: Top Gun himself does an amazing job as Ethan Hunt, a name which in my book deserves to be written at least two lines under James Bond.

Jean Reno: First time I ever saw him in a movie, where the second time was in Godzilla. A good villain and badass disloyal grunt.

Jon Voight: Well crafted acting for his character.

The Visuals:

Not half bad for a movie made in the 90s. The gadgets were superb but not on the same page as some of the gadgets in Golden Eye, but then again, you compare on certain levels, where M:I was more grounded in this particular area.

Overall:

A classic spy movie with intense thrills and one of De Palma's best action flicks.

Written by: Bawnian©-Dexeus.