Thinking about Mission: Impossible

No, this isn't about saving the republic from Donald Trump.

The latest film in the Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible series - number six, titled Fallout - has opened to rave reviews. It's been called "the most exciting mission yet" and "the summer's best movie" ... one review breathlessly proclaims, "Fallout is the summer’s greatest diversion, a non-stop pummeling of the senses that will activate the dumbest parts of your brain and temporarily convince you that what you are screaming, gasping, and laughing at is, in fact, possible."

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've seen the first five in the series, and while they were exciting in their way, I was very disappointed. I don't think any of them lived up to what I loved about the classic Mission: Impossible TV series.

The Mission: Impossible movies are simply star vehicles for Tom Cruise and a host of pyrotechnics experts, armorers, and stunt drivers. The old TV show was different, in a critical way.

In the TV series, the IM Force, led first by Dan Briggs and later by Jim Phelps, developed insanely complicated plans to bring down really bad bad guys. But they didn't rely on pyrotechnics, gunfights, and fierce martial arts combat ... they relied on psychology and on intricate schemes that would not only result in the defeat and ruin of the villains, but would leave them utterly horror-struck and unable to comprehend what had just happened to them.

The TV series was exciting because it was quietly suspenseful. Unbelievable, yes, but suspenseful. Consider the episode titled "Old Man Out," when the IM Force rescued an elderly religious leader imprisoned in an escape-proof fortress: the plan involved getting a member of the team into the prison to sail the old man out on a zip line ... right above the heads of the unsuspecting guards, who were distracted by the circus* the rest of the team was staging outside the walls. Or the episode in which they hijacked a passenger train and hid it in a warehouse where they staged an entire journey culminating in a huge crash ... all in order to unmask the perfidy of a foreign leader's key advisor. Want more? Here's an article that summarizes some of the best episodes.

I'll watch the movies, but the TV show was a lot better.

And I don't like Tom Cruise, anyhow.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* We're still being distracted by circuses, aren't we?