I Rewatched Mission: Impossible

It was 1996. Tom Cruise was a big movie star, no one knew about all the Scientology stuff going on, and Mission: Impossible was released in theaters. Yup, Tom Cruise has been making Mission: Impossible movies for 22 years. And it shows on screen.

I remember seeing Mission: Impossible in theaters - pretty sure it was with my brother - and at the time I rememeber loving it. Of course, I was just about to go into 6th grade and it was the nineties and the movie briefly had Coach Bombay. It's been years since I've seen it, so I was expecting great stuff with maybe a few dated things.

Well, it's slightly more campy than I remember. I forgot how for most of the movie every character that Tom Cruise face masks, is just Tom Cruise in make up. 1996 was a big year for actor's playing multiple roles. The fixed in the next one by coming up with that computer chip Band Aid that somehow magically changes your voice. I will say though, the face mask reveals, pretty well done for 1996.

The computer work in the movie is definitely the most dated thing in the movie. Ethan Hunt looking for a super criminal on usergroups for the bible, scrolling through weird stuff on a laptop the size of a toaster oven. And then there are the 128 MB Zip Drives or whatever they were called. 

It's amazing the jump that happens in the next movie that was released in 2000. How quickly computers and hairstyles changed.

And then there's the big wire suspension seen which makes absolutely no sense. First of all, what is that guy's job? He just looks like an office worker, but he happens to be doing work that he can only do at the most secure terminal in the world? And if it's doing all this computer work, why does he have a trash can?

The most absurd thing to me though is the fact that there is a sign inside the room that says "Intrusion Countermeasures." Then underneath there are lights for on and off. When my high school math teacher leaves the room, the light switches to "on." Who is this sign for? There's no reason for it except the assumption that movie audiences in 1996 were idiots.

I have to say though, all in all, it's still a decent movie because of the action set pieces. The explosion in the restaurant with all the fish tanks is still pretty cool as Tom Cruise runs through the window. The final train sequence on top of the train is pretty good too. Especially when you realize that Tom Cruise wanted to find the craziest wind machine in Europe so his face would actually be distorted and look real.

I kind of look forward to rewatch this whole series. You can definitely see the start of Tom Cruise deciding he's going to do these ridiculous stunts. And it may be one of the few franchises that get better the more they make of them. (Fast and Furious would be another one, which some people might disagree with, but that's an argument for another day.) This may also be the start of when Tom Cruise decided he could be a producer and have power on the movie set and thus ruined The Mummy.