Mission: Impossible
1996  PG-13  ACTION  1h 50min
CAST— Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave
MUSIC— Danny Elfman  DIRECTOR— Brian De Palma  BASED ON— Characters appearing on Mission: Impossible (television)

     The mission begins with this first installment of the M: I series. Tom Cruise plays a suave secret agent whose latest mission leaves him the only surviving member of his team. His superiors assume the worst and blame him for the death and destruction, claiming that he’s a mole. Desperate to clear his name Cruise recruits a team of defunct agents and takes on a mission that very nearly is impossible, the lives of countless undercover operatives at stake. Director Brian De Palma delivers a Hitchcockian thriller (albeit with more stunt work than Hitch could dream of) that is fun though rather unsatisfying. A blend of North by Northwest (1959) and any one of the louder James Bond flicks.
OUR RATING— ** ½
FOLLOWED BY— Mission: Impossible II (2000), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Mission: Impossible— Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible— Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible— Fallout (2018)