Mission: Impossible
After he is framed for the death of several colleagues and falsely branded a traitor, a secret agent embarks on a daring scheme to clear his name in this spy adventure. Though it drew its name from the familiar television series, director Brian DePalma's big-budget adaptation shares little more with the original show than the occasional self-destructing message and the name of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). The film focuses not on Phelps but his protégé, Ethan Hunt (a reserved Tom Cruise), who becomes a fugitive after taking the blame for a botched operation. He responds by banding together with a group of fellow renegades, and he is soon maneuvering his way through a twisted series of double crosses that mainly serve as excuses for spectacular high-tech action sequences. Much of the activity revolves around a missing computer disk, with the film's most famous scene depicting Hunt's delicate efforts to retrieve the disk from a secure, well-alarmed room in CIA headquarters. more..
Director: Brian De Palma
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Henry Czerny, Emmanuelle Beart, Jean Reno
Enormous fun.
Director Brian De Palma is having too much fun zipping around curves and hitting the accelerator to slow down. He's a supremely confident engineer, and if you're game enough to make a jump for it and hold on, he offers the giddy excitement of watching the ground rush by beneath your dangling feet.
The bottom line on a film like this is, Tom Cruise looks cool and holds our attention while doing neat things that we don't quite understand--doing them so quickly and with so much style that we put our questions on hold, and go with the flow.
It's a movie of profoundly convoluted pop pleasures. Between dazzling suspense sequences, it invites the audience to work for a good time.
Stylish, brisk but lacking in human dimension despite an attractive cast.
Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (1997)
Best Foreign Language Film
Awards of the Japanese Academy (1997)
Danny Elfman
BMI Film & TV Awards (1997)
Golden Screen, Germany (1996)
Favorite Movie Actor
Kids' Choice Awards (1997)
No lists