Mission: Impossible (1996) - Review

Mission: Impossible (1996) - Review

Mission: Impossible is one of the finest spy thrillers of its decade and a film of real cinematic intelligence that launched one of the most enduring and consistently impressive franchises in contemporary cinema. Brian De Palma's 1996 film is not the action spectacle the franchise would eventually become. It is a suspense thriller of extraordinary craft, a film that uses misdirection, paranoia, and the mechanics of the heist genre with a precision and confidence that makes the experience thrilling in a register the franchise's more spectacular later entries would largely abandon. It trusts its audience with genuine complexity, delivers its most celebrated sequence, the CIA vault infiltration, with a tension and physical precision that remains one of the finest suspense sequences in the genre's history, and gives Tom Cruise a role of real dramatic intelligence that established Ethan Hunt as one of the action genre's most compelling protagonists. Mission: Impossible is the franchise at its most disciplined and intelligent, and it remains one of the finest films in the series.

At a Glance

Director: Brian De Palma
Runtime: 110 minutes
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno
Release: 1996
Critics Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5 stars, a suspense masterclass)
Audience Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 stars, a beloved original)

Review Breakdown

Plot

Ethan Hunt, an IMF agent, is the sole survivor of a mission that goes catastrophically wrong and finds himself framed for the deaths of his team. To clear his name and discover who betrayed them, he assembles an unauthorised team and plans an audacious heist of the CIA's most secure facility. The plot is the franchise's most narratively complex, a spy thriller of considerable intelligence that uses its misdirection and paranoia with a precision and confidence that makes the experience engaging throughout. The film's most celebrated structural achievement is its first-act twist, in which the apparent mission is revealed to be a trap. The CIA vault sequence is the film's most celebrated set-piece, a demonstration of suspense filmmaking of such complete physical precision and dramatic tension that it remains one of the finest sequences in the genre's history.

Characters

Ethan Hunt is established in this entry as a character of intelligence and moral complexity. Cruise plays the character's paranoia and determination with a conviction and physical authority that makes Hunt feel credible at every turn, and his performance is the franchise's most dramatically nuanced. Jon Voight's Jim Phelps is the film's most dramatically interesting character, a man whose apparent trustworthiness and eventual betrayal give the picture its most significant development and its most emotionally affecting moment. Henry Czerny's Kittridge is the film's most functionally effective antagonist, a CIA official of intelligence and institutional authority. Jean Reno's Krieger is the film's most purely enjoyable supporting presence, a character of considerable physical capability and wit whose function in the CIA vault sequence gives the franchise's most celebrated set-piece its most entertaining secondary element.

Tone

De Palma pitches the film at a register of suspense and narrative complexity, and the approach is wholly successful. Mission: Impossible has a tonal intelligence and dramatic precision the franchise's more spectacular later entries would largely set aside in favour of a more overtly action-focused register. The film's most effective sequences are those in which tension is generated through physical precision and dramatic intelligence rather than through spectacular action, and the CIA vault sequence is the franchise's most sustained exercise in pure suspense craft.

Meaning / Themes

At its core, the film is about loyalty and betrayal, about the institutional trust the IMF demands of its agents and the discovery that that trust has been comprehensively violated. The revelation of Phelps's betrayal is the franchise's most emotionally affecting development. The treatment of the IMF as an institution of moral ambiguity gives the franchise's central concern with deception and identity its most complete initial expression.

Direction

De Palma's direction is the franchise's most assured and formally inventive, with a command of suspense mechanics and a feel for the film's paranoid register that makes Mission: Impossible the most dramatically intelligent entry in the series. The CIA vault sequence is the film's directorial masterpiece, a demonstration of suspense filmmaking of such extraordinary spatial precision and dramatic control that it stands as one of the great set-pieces in the genre's history. The visual style, rooted in De Palma's characteristic use of split screens, slow motion, and precise camera movement, gives the film a visual identity as distinctive as its dramatic intelligence. Danny Elfman's score, built around Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme, gives the film a sonic identity as distinctive as its visual one.

Cultural Reception

Mission: Impossible was a major critical and commercial success on its release, widely regarded as one of the finest spy thrillers of its era and as a demonstration of De Palma's command of the suspense genre. Its reputation has remained strong in the decades since, and it is now consistently ranked among the franchise's finest entries and as one of the most intelligent spy thrillers of the 1990s.

Who Should Watch

Everyone, without reservation. Mission: Impossible is one of the foundational texts of the modern spy thriller and a film that works for audiences of every age and background. Those who know the franchise only through its more spectacular later entries will find a film of considerably more narrative complexity and genuine suspense.

Final Verdict: One of the finest spy thrillers of its decade and the franchise's most formally disciplined entry. Cruise's Hunt is established as one of the action genre's most compelling protagonists, Voight's Phelps is the franchise's most dramatically affecting character, and De Palma's direction gives the material a suspense intelligence and dramatic precision the franchise's more spectacular later entries would largely set aside. Mission: Impossible is the franchise at its most purely cinematic. It remains one of the finest films in the series.

The Mission: Impossible Series

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