So funnily enough till recently I was probably the few people who have seen any Mission Impossible films. To be honest I haven't seen that many Tom Cruise films in general. The Mission Impossible series to me looked like one of those franchises that seemed like it probably need 4 times the movies it actually needs, a lot like the Fast and Furious movies however I keep hearing that the last few Mission Impossible movies have been some of the best the series has to offer. So I decided to watch the series from the beginning with the first film Mission: Impossible (1996).
The story focus on Ethan Hunt an agent of the Impossible Missions Force or the IMF for short. He is sent on a mission with his team lead by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). One by one the team is killed off with Hunt being the only surviving member (although later you find out he isn't). He requests a meeting with IMF boss Kittridge (Henry Czerney) who accuse Hunt off being a mole. On the run Hunt is desperate to clear his name and find the real mole.
The film's director is Brian De Palma who is known for directing films such as dressed to a kill and the Scarface remake starring Al Pacino. This would be De Palma's only entry into the series with John Woo directing the second. De Palma brings a lot of suspense to the film which can be apparent in the scene were Hunt is copying over a list from a computer in a heavily secured room in the IMF HQ. There is no music of any kind in the scene and everyone is silent as if Hunt or any one in his team speak or make a sound then the alarms go off and the room goes on lockdown, the suspense in the scene is done really well as we can see Krieger (Jean Reno) struggling to hold Hunt from the cable he hoisted down on and a worker who has been drugged to make sure he doesn't come in while Hunt is transferring data on to a disc. This works has there are problems that can have big consequences on Hunt and his Mission and there is a threat that he must avoid as well.
The film as lot of unique shots that you wouldn't see in films any more. There are a few examples of POV (Point of View) shots that wouldn't be used like they way in this movie. This is done to establish the surrounds of were Hunt or any one from his team are. There is a scene where Hunt is in a car with an arms dealer called Max (Vanessa Redgrave), you can see they are in a car in a studio with a green screen but they make the car rock a bit to give the effect of the car going over the speed bump. There is another seen near the end of the film where Hunt is on the top of a train and needs to stop Phelps and Krieger from escaping, although again this done on a green screen they must have had a big fan to give the effect of the train passing through the wind and its quite effective.
However although there a lot of clever techniques used to great effect. I have to talk about the things that in my opinion drag the movie down. For me it was mainly the team at the beginning of the film as they are established well enough but to me they didn't really do much in the mission that i would feel a little emotional to each of them dying, to be fair to this some did more that others like Harmon (Emilio Estevez) who controls the elevator but even then we don't get them to interact with Hunt that much for me to feel connected to them. Also some of the effects are a little crappy but it was the late 90's so I think I'll let that slide.
Overall, I would give Mission Impossible a 7/10: A decent plot with massive stakes for the lead character, but can feel a little hard to follow at times.
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