THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230147
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 88 lines
IF YOU'RE AMONG the several million people who are going to be ready to accept the ``mission'' during this holiday week, it won't necessarily be easy. While most fans will be looking for a wild nostalgia ride, ``Mission Impossible'' is baffling and even perplexing. Even those who commit to the movie's plot may well question if its pretense at complexity is actually bogus.
Depending on your tolerance for endlessly twisting plots and subplots, spies and counterspies, ``Mission Impossible'' is tolerable, but not much fun. It is closer to 1964's ``The Spy Who Came in From the Cold'' than it is to the TV series, which ran from 1966 to 1973 and was revived in the 1988-'89 season.
You might wonder how they are going to make a Tom Cruise vehicle out of a scenario that originally starred a team. We get the answer early. The film opens with a botched Prague mission in which most of the team, except Cruise of course, is killed off. This leaves Cruise, as cocky and energetic agent Ethan Hunt, suspected of betrayal and on the run.
Cruise works hard, hanging in mid-air, dashing across the top of a speeding train and dodging torrents of cascading water. His little-boy look, though, often gets in the way of the superhero role. In the past, the success of his films have depended largely upon his yuppie, handsome boyishness. Here, he looks like a little boy dressed up with too many places to go.
``Mission Impossible'' does have its action moments. An aquarium explodes in a chic Prague restaurant. A tricky break-in finds the star hanging like a trapeze artist. The finale is indeed grand, but it looks as if it's tacked on from another movie.
Are three action scenes enough? Between, you get a chance to figure who's who. The least of your guesses will be the identity of the ``mole'' who has infiltrated the Impossible Missions Force. It's so obvious that there's little suspense.
Baby boomers will get into a dither over the Lalo Schifrin theme song, complete with bongos, from the original TV series. It is merged seamlessly with Danny Elfman's rousing new score.
Other comparisons to the original TV show are a little slippery. According to my guess, Cruise is playing Martin Landau's old part. He has several disguises, although it seems cheap to wear nothing more than a rubber mask in a movie this expensive. Jon Voight (Oscar winner for ``Midnight Cowboy'') is in the Peter Graves role (sorta). Jean Reno (outstanding in ``The Professional'') is the strong man, presumably the Peter Lupus part. Ving Rhames is the electronics specialist, perhaps a counterpart to the Greg Morris role? And Emmanuelle Beart must be Barbara Bain, although the connection is at best faint.
Beart, particularly, gets short shrift. There is the hint that this film has been cut somewhere along the way. One scene refers to Cruise not resisting her charms, but there has been no love scene. If this was a love affair, it is among the more chaste in recent moviedom.
The Cold War stance seems a bit old hat, especially since the film insists upon using the latest computer gadgets to combat it. Moviemakers should someday realize that it isn't so exciting to see some spy download his laptop in a race with competitors.
Brian De Palma, who so often copies Hitchcock, seems particularly frantic when left to copy lesser material. The editing is spastic.
With the supporting roles mired in dozens of red herrings, there are still two standouts. Vanessa Redgrave, arguably one of the best actresses of this generation, camps it up as a Communist meanie. It's not so thrilling to see this great actress reduced to such overacting, but one supposes she, like lesser talents, has to pay the rent. Henry Czerny, too, is a standout as the pursed-lip American head honcho who keeps suggesting that maybe something is rotten in the state of America.
While it's challenging to try and keep up with this mission, it might not really be worth the energy we're forced to put into it. It's a little like learning Swedish even though we're not planning to go to Sweden. Although stylish, the mission is notably lacking in human emotion. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Mission Impossible''
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave, Emmanuelle Beart,
Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Emilio Estevez, Ving Rhames, Kristin
Scott-Thomas
Director: Brian De Palma
Screenplay: David Koepp and Robert Towne, based on the television
series created by Bruce Geller
Music: Danny Elfman with theme song by Lalo Schifrin
MPAA rating: PG-13 (several scenes of violence)
Mal's rating: two and 1/2 stars
Locations: Cinemark, Greenbrier 13 in Chesapeake; Janaf, Main
Gate in Norfolk; Commodore in Portsmouth; Kemps River, Lynnhaven
Mall, Surf-N-Sand in Virginia Beach by CNB