Film Review: Mission Impossible

Previously on the SDP, I wrapped up the 007 Golden Jubilee once again with my Spectre review last month.  But it would seem there's one corner of the James Bond film series I've left unaddressed.  Maybe there's some Bond movie out there not recognised by EON Productions?  Well ladies and gentlemen, that ends now, because today I'm reviewing...

Mission: Impossible

• Publisher: Paramount
• Studio: Cruise/Wagner Productions
• Genre: Action
• Release: 22 May 1996
• Director: Brian de Palma
• Producers: Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner
• Writers: David Koepp, Robert Towne

April Fools!  ...But seriously folks, 2016 does mark the 20th anniversary of the Mission: Impossible film series, plus the 50th anniversary of the TV show that inspired it to begin with, so I figured, why not kick off a new mini-series devoted to them?  Hence, the Mission: Impossible Golden Jubilee.  Links to reviews of the other movies will be provided below as they are made available.

• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Mission: Impossible II (2000)
• Mission: Impossible III (2006)
• Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
• Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Now just so we're clear, this event is focusing solely on the five Mission: Impossible movies released thus far.  As of this posting, I have not seen any episodes of the TV shows (yes, plural), so the extent to which I can use them as a frame of reference is limited.  On the flip side, that means I don't have to worry about coming in with expectations that may not be met.  So, how well does the introductory entry hold up two decades on?  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read on.

Our story starts in Prague, where the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) is seeking to recover a list of the CIA's non-official cover (NOC) agents from the American embassy.  The team is directed by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), its leader from the TV series.  The mission starts off well enough, but the agents are killed off one by one -- except its point man, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).  Hunt is later debriefed by his boss, Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), that the mission was a trap to identify a mole inside IMF -- and by surviving, Hunt is fingered as a suspect.  His mission is then three-fold: clear his name with the IMF, protect the NOC list from the hands of an arms dealer named Max, and identify the mole working with Max.

Mission: Impossible boasts a number of unique shots,
including many slanted camera angles.

Kicking off a long line of star directors handling this franchise, this first entry was directed by Brian de Palma, whose eouvre includes Carrie (1976), Scarface (1983), and The Untouchables (1987).  Among the touches he brings to the table is his use of simultaneous events in the foreground and background to advance the story without cutting, which is good, and a slight over-depenence on tilted camera angles, which is... weird.  Huh, maybe the director of Battlefield Earth got inspired by this movie.  Other notable scenes in this movie, from a directorial standpoint, are a brief section shot in Ethan's first-person view as he gets picked up by Max's henchmen, and two different scenes where flashbacks are used to illustrate Ethan's thought process as he works out the twists laid out to him.

And then there's movie's most iconic scene: the computer room cable drop.  See, Ethan and some other disavowed agents need to steal the real NOC list from a computer room at the CIA headquarters, in order to flush out the real mole.  Said room has only two entrances: a door, guarded by biometric locks he won't be able to fool, and an air vent from the ceiling.  On top of that, the room is guarded by three types of sensors: sound, temperature (to detect the body heat of an intruder), and a floor-mounted pressure sensor.  Ethan thus has to be lowered by cables into the room.  This whole scene lasts about ten minutes, with little to no music or other sensory overloads to accompany it, but keeps managing to find new ways to inject tension, some of them admittedly more contrived than others.  (A wild rat appears?  Come on Franz, you should've brought a Max Repel!)  Still, if you gave this scene to a more flashy director like the Michael Bays of the world, it just wouldn't work in the same way.  For the record, this scene is an homage to the climax of Topkapi, a 1964 heist film about a group of con artists attempting to steal jewelry from the titular palace in Istanbul.

The computer-room cable-drop scene succeds in its quiet tension.

Mission: Impossible got a mixed reception at the time of its release.  Among the disapproving voices were actors from the original TV shows, including Peter Graves and Martin Landau, due to a late-movie plot twist which seemed out-of-character for that person.  (Namely, former hero Jim Phelps is revealed as the aforementioned mole.)  But to its credit, it does manage to respect some of the show's traditions here and there.  Both the initial embassy mission and the CIA break-in show Phelps or Hunt building and briefing their teams, and it is subsequently clear that the success of those missions depend on all of the members doing their part, not just one pointman.  It's just a shame that few team members, apart from Hunt and perhaps Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), manage to show off any sort of personality to distinguish themselves with.  If anyone else had a chance in that department, it would be the wisecracking hacker Jack Harmon (Emilio Estevez) and the weaselly pilot Franz Kriegler (Jean Reno), but of course they both get killed at different points.

Apart from that, criticisms were leveled mainly against the convoluted nature of the plot.  If you don't pay attention, it's easy to miss some leaps of logic that take Ethan from one scene to the next.  I for one never had a problem following it, but then again I'm one of those weirdos who could keep track of all the dream-diving in Inception.  Personally, I'd point to the aforementioned altered-flashback scenes as key to deciphering much of the plot twists, as they present exposition in a much-needed "show, don't tell" fashion.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in this regard, Mission: Impossible is no worse than some of the more complex Bond films, like Octopussy or The Living Daylights.  So, as long as you don't nod off for whatever reason, and you're not too attached with the Jim Phelps of the TV show, I'm sure you'll agree with me that this movie still holds up.

Positives:
+ Several creative shots.
+ The computer-room cable-drop scene is just BOSS.
+ Honours some of its source material's traditions, while doing its own thing with them.
Negatives:
- Bland side characters.
- The plot is challenging, but not insurmountable, to follow.
- Certain plot twists may irk fans of the TV show.

Acting: 4 out of 5
Writing: 3 out of 5
Technical: 5 out of 5
The Call: 80% (B)

N64 Month: Mission Impossible

Mission: Impossible

• Publisher: Ocean (N64), Infogrames (PS1)
• Developer: Infogrames (N64), X-ample (PS1)
• Release: 
• Nintendo 64, 18 July 1998
• PlayStation, 23 November 1999
• Genre: Action
• Players: 1
• Save:
• Battery/4 files (N64)
• Password, Memory Card/1 block (PS1)
• Rarity/Cost:
• N64: Common (US$5-10)
• PS1: Common (US$5-20)

This article was updated on 19 August 2013.

The loss of many key franchises was a detriment to the success of the Nintendo 64.  One of them is Metal Gear, the "Tactical Espionage Action" series.  To be honest, the franchise had existed before and wasn't that much of a hit until Metal Gear Solid released as a PlayStation exclusive, but when it hit, it hit big.  I have played it later on, and it was such a wonderful experience that I feel sorry for all those N64 fanboys who refused to add to their interests (and still do so).  But, fortunately for them, we got the next best thing: Mission: Impossible.

The older readers of this blog would recognise Mission: Impossible as a TV series from the 60s and 80s, starring the recently-deceased Peter Graves as Jim Phelps, point man for the non-governmental agency IMF (Impossible Mission Force). Phelps would accomplish missions by assembling a team of specialists and tricking information out of their adversaries.  For this reason, Mission: Impossible was different from other spy-fiction TV shows of the '60s.  However, this game is based instead on the 1996 movie, a reboot directed by Brian de Palma of Scarface fame. The movie passes the protagonist mantle onto Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), who loses his team in an ill-fated mission and must work outside his agency in order to take revenge and save the world while at it. So far the four-entry series has a good critical reputation, with the exception of the John Woo-directed M:I 2.

This game's 20 missions are divided into five acts, and share numerous key scenes from the film, including the Russian embassy in Prague, the CIA headquarters, and the train from London to Paris.  The story is also the same.  The CIA has this thing called Non-Official Cover list, or NOC list, which lists all of their undercover agents in eastern Europe.  And wouldn’t you know it, half of the list got leaked onto the open market!  So the IMF organise a mission to steal it back from the Russian embassy. In addition, the movie-based content is bookended by original scenarios set in an arctic base and concerning the misadventures of Basil Prokosh, an ex-Soviet wannabe warlord.  So, like Goldeneye, it's not a 100% faithful adaptation, but the changes they did make only help the story from a gameplay perspective.

You have to follow objectives in a strict order.

While I likened this game to the N64's counterpart to Metal Gear Solid, it plays more like Goldeneye in a number of different respects.  There are two difficulty levels, here named "Possible" and "Impossible", and on the harder setting, not only are enemies stronger and equipment scarcer, but additional objectives must be completed. Each mission has a series of objectives that must be cleared, and in many cases, you must complete some objectives within a specific order before you can even attempt to clear others. It's painfully easy to forget a step or two, so learn to use your radar in order to find them. Green dots are people, red dots are items you can pick up, and white dots are places where you can use those items.  However, killing the wrong person or destroying the wrong object could prevent you from moving on, forcing you to restart.  If a guard sees you doing something suspicious, that's a Game Over.  If you kill the wrong person, that's a Game Over.  If you complete certain objectives out of order, that's a Game Over.  If you lose all your health, well... that goes without saying.

To its credit, Mission: Impossible is not lacking in differences of kind.  There are plenty of action-oriented scenes, but many missions focus on stealth, with painful -- if not game-ending -- consequences should you draw attention to yourself.  The levels set in the CIA headquarters, for example, sit on the farther end of this scale, so much so that you have to use non-lethal weapons like dart guns, stunners, and... fire extinguishers.  As for actual firearms, there's not much in terms of variety -- there’s a pistol, a suppressed pistol, an Uzi, and a rocket launcher which, surprise surprise, looks like another pistol.  Although you don’t have to worry about reloading; ammo for both lethal and non-lethal weapons is counted by the round, not by the magazine. Furthermore, ammo and health carry over between missions within the same act, unless you retry from the start menu, in which case they reset. On the other hand, there is a wide array of gadgets and other items which are used to complete objectives, although the one that gets the most use by far is the Facemaker, a mask of sorts which you use on certain people to borrow their identity.

Aiming with a pseudo-first-person view.
(To think you can't do this in MGS!)

A few other missions provide more innovative fare, such as controlling a sniper protecting a computer-controlled Ethan, or manning the turret on a getaway gunboat.  Other missions are almost completely non-violent in nature, such as the party at the Russian Embassy.  These play out like those old text-adventure games, in third-person 3D form.  In practise, these can grow boring once you’ve figured out what to do, since it’s always the same experience every time.  And of course, the world-famous computer terminal cable drop is playable.  It may be a short spark, but somehow it burns bright.

Unlike in Goldeneye and MGS, you are able to jump in this game, although the mechanics for doing so are rather stiff, like everything else about the controls.  On the other hand, I found it easier to pull of headshots (or maybe I'm just good).  The graphics quality (at least for the N64 version, see below) is sub-par.  Not only does the frame rate waver quite a bit - going really, really slowly at its worst), but most textures always seem grainy, as if there was a texture filter applied at all times. And I know how tough getting the rights to an actor's likeness can be, but agent Hunt in the game looks absolutely nothing like Tom Cruise!  Nor does he sound like Tom Cruise, either.  Oh, I forgot to mention; even though most of the dialogue is presented with captions and no voiceovers, there are a few odd spoken clips here and there.  Plus, some of the missions are kicked off with one of the franchise’s world-famous briefings.

Now, unlike the other entries for N64 Month I have written/planned, M:I received a port for the PlayStation a year after its initial release.  (I was thinking of including another multi-platform game, Vigilante 8, but have decided against doing so due to time constraints.  Some other time...)  Gameplay-wise, the two ports are identical, sharing the same plot and the same 20 levels.  The PS1 version's graphics are better in a number of ways, with higher-resolution textures and a more stable frame-rate, but then again most N64-to-PS1 ports are. Also, as opposed to text captions, all dialogue in-game is voiced, although like most examples at that time, the acting quality is cheesy at best and just lame at worst.  So it's more of a pick-your-poison decision: no voice acting or bad voice acting.  Or, you can always take a third option and not buy this game at all.  After all, there's a reason the IMF briefings say, "your mission, should you choose to accept it", amirite?

Positives:
+ Wide variety of missions.
Negatives:
- Strict trial-and-error gameplay.
- Somewhat stiff controls.
- Poor texture quality and frame rate in the Nintendo 64 version.
- Poor voice acting in the PlayStation version.


Control: 2 facemakers out of 5
Design: 3 facemakers out of 5
Graphics: 2 facemakers out of 5 (N64) / 3 facemakers out of 5 (PS1)
Audio: 3 facemakers out of 5 (N64) / 2 facemakers out of 5 (PS1)
The Call: 65% (C)