This past weekend, I finally got around to purchasing and watching the DVD of the film Mission: Impossible III. As I expected, it was brain candy - loud, reasonably enjoyable, and as good a way as any of entertaining myself while folding the laundry. But as a fan of the original 1960's-vintage TV series, I found it as disappointing as I found the first two films.
For me, the beauty of the original Mission: Impossible series was that it didn't rely on wild car chases and huge, theatrical explosions. Instead, it relied on complex and cerebral (if wildly improbable) plans which always ended up outwitting the villain and winning the day. At the end of each show, you knew that the bad guy (and they were always really bad) would end up holding the bag, his plans in ruins, looking around in angry bewilderment and wondering where the train that hit him had come from. And you knew that the good guys would have vanished without a trace to crush another bad guy on another day. I could watch those old shows every day (and I often do, owning the whole first season on DVDs).
But we don't operate that way any more. We've come to expect the over-the-top special effects that rule the big screen - lots of gunfire, explosions, and screaming car chases. The high point of many of the old Mission: Impossible shows came not when the bad guy's hideout blew up and his minions were mown down by gunfire, but when Rollin Hand ("The Man of a Million Faces") slowly peeled away his perfectly-created latex mask to grin at a villain who suddenly realized in helpless anger that he'd been well and truly screwed.
We need an Impossible Missions Force today. Not the frantic, high-energy IMF of Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames, but the minutely-planning, detail-oriented 1960's IMF of Steven Hill, Martin Landau, and Barbara Bain.
We need an Impossible Missions Force that can take on the really impossible missions: creating a fair and affordable health care system in America, reforming the tax system, giving us the world-class education system we need, conquering Alzheimer's disease, or bringing lasting peace to the Middle East.
It would be satisfying to see vicious, ugly villains like Osama bin Laden and the Latin American drug barons stand there gaping while George W. Bush peeled away his latex mask to reveal the real leader who had left their evil schemes in ruins...or a Congress interested only in partisan bickering suddenly realize that they'd been outwitted by a real team that could work together to solve an impossible problem.
But somehow, I think that's a really impossible mission.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
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