The television series Mission: Impossible was heady, trippy stuff in the late Sixties — brilliant disguises and calculated deceits, all to a signature musical theme that urgently evoked intrigue. Its characters relied on their wits to pull off intricately planned stratagems: They were, of sorts, the antithesis of James Bond, who traded on his muscle and sex appeal to accomplish the same. The much-hyped film version of the series faithfully reproduces much of its TV precursor, down to the lit fuse. But while high-tech wizardry — not to mention state-of-the-art special effects — distinguish it from its original source, there’s a certain pizzazz lacking here. You go away from this movie concluding that the television series was infinitely better. Maybe it’s because Mission Impossible is something of a vanity production. Fit and trim, the ever-capable Cruise (he also co-produced the film) looks like he pumped iron between takes, drawing as much attention as possible to his biceps in the interest of audience demographics. (If anything, Cruise is shrewd.) Maybe Mission: Impossible falls short because it has no real style. You’d never know that Brian De Palma directed this movie. Where’s the operatic, over-the-top setpiece that — for better or worse — exhilaratingly defines his work? With the exception of the occasional use of camera angles taken from the school of German Expressionism, this movie is strictly business. And maybe Mission: Impossible doesn’t make much of an impression because, on the big screen, its narrative improbabilities, which may have been palatable on the small screen years ago, seem magnified. A host of top-gun screenwriters (Steven Zaillian, Robert Towne, David Koepp) tinkered with the script about a botched mission and the crosses and double-crosses that ensue, but the result isn’t satisfactory; vague memories of better story lines on the television program come to mind. Until its white-knuckle finale atop a speeding bullet train traversing from London to Paris, Mission: Impossible seems languid and enervated, although a computer hacking scene over midway through comes close to finding the right momentum. Whatever the reason for its disappointments, Mission: Impossible is a mission gone awry, prompting you to hope that reruns of its television incarnation will pop up on cable soon.
This article appears in May 24 • 1996 (Cover).
