Mission Impossible Review

If there is one character that always seems to find himself on the wrong side of his employers, that's Ethan Hunt. Ethan Hunt is the main character in Mission Impossible played by Tom Cruise. In this film, Hunt is an agent for the IMF, an agency that will disavow any agent who fails a mission. Hunt works on a team under the leadership of his mentor Jim Phelps. However, the opening mission in the movie goes badly finding Hunt the apparent lone survivor and a fugitive from the IMF during a mission to retrieve a list of CIA agents. The story thrusts Hunt into the role of having to deduce the cause of his team’s demise and to clear his name before it's too late.

    A major challenge this film had to pull off was giving us likeable characters to follow and it does just that. The film possesses many great qualities with Cruise at the forefront. Great characters are very prevalent with characters such as Ethan Hunt a charming agent who lives to take risks, Luther Stickley  (Ving Rhames), a notorious computer hacking disavowed agent, Max the sharp and cunning arms dealer, and the reimagination of Jim Phelps from the original Mission Impossible TV series played by Jon Voight. Since we have rich characters to follow, the story flows so much better. More great elements in this film include the part of espionage that is active here. The film is an action spy film with plenty of action but it really focuses on the espionage element when Hunt has to investigate the cause of the failed mission in the beginning and also keep under wraps from his IMF boss who is hunting him, another great character Kittridge. Since the element of espionage is delivered and executed well and intensity develops and is present throughout the story. The film does well hurtling through with a smart plot and not a dumb uninspired formulaic plot which they could have easily gone with. Even with the great aspects in Mission Impossible it still has a couple of flaws though.

The flaws of Mission Impossible aren’t major but are worth pointing out. The film’s biggest twist is taking Jim Phelps and turning him into a villain. This plays out well for the excitement in the movie but pays a disservice to the character as a whole who was so important to the original TV series. Many fans were taken aback at Paramount’s decision to turn the beloved character into a villain. However, I believe this would have been a lesser issue if they had spent more time developing his character and showing why he didn’t want to go on serving the government. Another flaw present in this film I believe is the IMF team Ethan assembles being too one-sided. It turns out the team only consisted of two members who weren’t in on the villainous plot and while that's fine it would have been nice if the film had embraced the team aspect of Mission Impossible more and included more truly good agents instead of just Hunt leading the charge. The flaws, of the film don’t do a whole lot to detract from the great fun to be mined from this film, though.

In the end, Mission Impossible is a great espionage adventure. Cruise does a great job playing Hunt making for a strong lead. The cast of characters is well rounded and provides what every satisfying story needs likeable characters. The film isn’t perfect but the flaws aren’t such a big deal that you should find yourself at odds with the storyline. The film Mission Impossible overall is a great satisfying film. I am assigning this film a score of 9/10.