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It’s a testament to Tom Cruise’s raw charisma and screen presence that I was able to make it through director Brian DePalma’s boring big screen upgrade of the ’60s television show Mission: Impossible. Because despite having a script co-written by lauded screenwriters Steven Zaillian and David Koepp, it’s a boring affair with precious little action and next-to-no character development or personality. Before we get to know the spy team Cruise is part of, most of them are killed off and a tedious plot is set in motion: Cruise is blamed for offing his own teammates, forced to find the real double-crosser before he’s captured or killed. DePalma and the writers seem to be banking on a plot so sophisticated and surprising that it’ll compensate for the film’s lack of character. Problem is, the mystery is paper thin. It’s easy to predict who the real bad guy is in this movie, and the film does nothing to ever make you consider otherwise. So it’s both boring and predictable.
But Cruise has a power — love him or hate him, it’s there. The film would be far, far worse without him. Most of the supporting talent are wasted here, save for Jean Reno (The Professional) as one of Cruise’s new recruits and Vanessa Redgrave as a rival spy master with whom Cruise forms a tenuous alliance. Ving Rhames is memorable just for being Ving Fucking Rhames. Everyone else — Jon Voight, Kristin Scott Thomas, an uncredited Emilio Estevez, Emmanuelle Beart, and Henry Czerny are either going through the motions or given precious little to do.
By far the best sequence in the film is one in which Reno lowers Cruise in a harness into a high tech chamber where he can’t touch the floor without setting off an alarm. DePalma milks that sequence for all the suspense its worth. It’s just too bad the rest of the movie feels like discount James Bond. Composer Danny Elfman compensates at times with his brassy and percussive score, but without much character drama or genuine intrigue to move us between the film’s three measly set-pieces (including a goofy climactic helicopter/train battle), Mission: Impossible doesn’t even come close to giving 007 a run for his money.