Reflecting on Mission: Impossible

Reflecting On...

Mission: Impossible Movies

 

It’s hard to believe the Mission: Impossible film series has been going for nearly thirty years. The latest installment, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, comes out this month, so I thought I would revive my short-lived “Reflecting On…” series from years ago and take a look back at the ups and downs of this long-running franchise before it potentially comes to an end—at least, before this era ends, which seems likely given the title changed from Dead Reckoning Part Two to The Final Reckoning and the trailer largely used footage from past missions in a style similar to Avengers: Endgame. Cruise says he’ll be back, but will the other current cast members? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

What’s interesting about the Mission: Impossible franchise is the way it has evolved into something far better and more interesting with successive films, which basically never happens to any franchise. I normally write about movies I have strong feelings about and have a surplus of knowledge on, but I wanted to give my thoughts on these ones for the opposite reasons, actually. I don’t have a strong attachment to them, I don’t know them inside and out, and some of my opinions probably don’t align with most big fans of the franchise, so I’m going to be offering potentially different takes from the usual conversations about them and won’t be going too in-depth on all of them. This will be more of a breeze through of how I remember each Mission: Impossible.    

 

Mission: Impossible (1996)

The first Mission: Impossible kind of sucks. It’s a toss up, for me, which one I dislike more: this one or the first of the many sequels. My first memory of watching this one on VHS was at an age when I was way too young and way too interested in other kinds of movies to even pay attention to the whole thing, and when I sat down and watched it again properly as an adult, I found myself incredibly underwhelmed. There is something rather meek and simple about the first Mission: Impossible now because of how awesome the later movies are, but I think even for the time it came out audiences weren’t going head over heels for the debut of Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Missions Force.

The parts that stick with me the most are the train action sequence in the final act and the constant use of special tech. The one that irks me most is the use of rubber masks. Maybe I’m corrupted by having seen Austin Powers and Charlie’s Angels too many times—you know, movies that came later and poked fun at this movie? —but I just find the seriousness of this one makes it less fun, and the rubber mask stuff just reminds me of those other movies which takes me out of it. If you can’t already tell, I’m not a big fan of the rubber masks. I know they’re from the show originally, but it’s a gimmick I’m glad was minimized for future entries. I don’t have a lot else to say on this one. It’s just kind of dull aside from a couple memorable action moments. It isn’t terrible, but I think even in the filmography of director Brian De Palma it’s not one of his strongest efforts.

 

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

This is the only one I’ve seen just once many years ago as of writing this. From what I remember, the premise of this first sequel is no better or worse than the first movie, but there aren’t as many memorable action moments that stand out as being unique—something the franchise would become known for. The rubber masks are back, but so is Luther, played by Ving Rhames, who is always a welcome addition to one of these movies. This was from the era of long-haired Tom Cruise, so that could be something to make it better or worse for you, depending on your disposition. I at least prefer the cinematography in this one over the first film. Director John Woo brings his slow-mo sensibilities to the action, and while it may be goofy at times, it still provides some mindless entertainment. That being said, I think it’s pretty unanimous that this is the worst entry in the franchise.

 

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

I remember this one was a big deal when it came out. Looking back, it’s clear how director J.J. Abrams became a go-to guy for big franchise revivals after this, because this was the first M: I movie that the majority of audiences could agree was a fun, well-made blockbuster, and it was very successful. Abrams regulars pop up in the cast, too, and one reason this is my favourite of the first three movies is because of the villain played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The villains in the first two movies weren’t that memorable, but this guy is quite compelling, and even though the plot really isn’t anything special, it moves along at a nice clip without quite as many cheesy elements as the previous two.

The shot of Ethan Hunt getting slammed sideways into a vehicle after a concussive explosion in the background was used heavily in the marketing, and that imagery really stuck with me. Unlike sequels to come and the original, though, I can’t say there’s one big stunt that really stands out in my memory, aside from this bridge assault. Ethan’s character is given a bit more depth, with his wife becoming part of the storyline, and new characters are introduced for him to play off. For a while, this was the best entry in the Mission: Impossible trilogy by far, but looking back at it now in the context of the whole franchise as it stands, I can’t say it's quite as good as it used to be. I would still watch this one again because it’s a lot more fun and less dated than the first two, and it helped course correct the series, but it isn’t as exceptionally original as later examples.

 

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

This was where they stopped numbering them and started putting hyphens in the titles. My controversial take: I thought this movie was highly overrated when I first saw it—note, thought, past tense. I was too cool for more Mission: Impossible movies when it first came out. What was so great about this one? That Tom Cruise hung off a really big building and did it for real? I picked on the increased humour, the questionable CGI, and the lame death for the villain, who was not as compelling as the villain from III. It was the first M:I that I saw in theaters, and everyone I saw it with was raving about it, but I wasn’t trying to be a contrarian. I just wasn’t that into spy movies at that point and I hadn’t even seen all the previous movies yet, so I just didn’t really care about it that much.

Then, I watched it again years later after thinking I had disliked it, and found it was actually pretty fun. I wouldn’t call it overrated anymore, but I do think its greatness was blown a little out of proportion when it first came out, and now in the context of the franchise, it isn’t the best one, but it does have one of the best stunts. Brad Bird, who had only directed animated films prior to this, refreshed the series yet again, and did a great job directing the action. The Dubai tower sequence, used heavily in the film’s promotion, really is a standout for its inventive, suspenseful execution.

Watching it again, it was the first time I was clued in to why fans wanted more of these movies: Tom Cruise kept upping the ante by putting himself in these actual dangerous situations to pull off original stunts that put everyone on the edge of their seats. The return of Simon Pegg’s character Benji from III also solidified this new era for the series. Ethan was an old hat at these missions, but Benji had just been newly promoted, and combined with a few new characters, the dynamic was far more endearing than past character combos, and aside from Ethan and Luther, there had been little continuity with the supporting casts.

So, looking at it now, I get why everyone loved Ghost Protocol. I appreciate that it made the stakes feel higher but not unrealistically so, and it established the new M: I era, but I didn’t feel compelled to go back and watch it again until after seeing the one that followed…

 

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)   

2015 was a great year for movies, and while Rogue Nation was not on my favourite films of the year list, it did wow me by seriously upping the level of action and thrills. What surprised me the first time I saw it was how the stunt of Cruise hanging off the side of a plane as it takes off was featured as the first major stunt. It had been used as the big moment to end the trailers, and if you know anything about modern trailers spoiling the best parts of the movie, it felt safe to assume that was going to be part of the finale. I was glad to be wrong.

Later marketing made it clear the motorcycle chase was going to feature as a major action sequence as well, and it forms the centerpiece of the film—somehow still feeling fresh and original after all the action sequences in the films preceding it. In fact, all of the major sequences in this one are memorable, from the opera assassination attempt to the car chase that transitions into the motorcycle chase to the underground water tank infiltration. I remember actually believing Ethan Hunt might drown and die; it didn’t feel like a trick, but rather just a really suspenseful part of the mission that really did seem impossible, and yet I bought it.

The return of Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner’s characters helped make this one feel a little less serialized and a little more like a true sequel, but the addition of Rebecca Ferguson to the cast as the new femme fatale Isla Faust made Rogue Nation sexier and deadlier than Ghost Protocol. Even though it still features all the familiar spy elements (including an admittedly clever use of those rubber masks I abhor), they are utilized in new clever ways, and it deepens the lore by exploring The Syndicate, with the villain, Solomon Lane, played by Sean Harris, being a former MI6 agent. His capture at the end is the most satisfying ending of any of these movies, I think, and for the first time, a Mission: Impossible movie actually left me wanting more.

 

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Remember when they had to use CGI to remove Henry Cavill’s moustache for reshoots of Justice League because he was contractually obligated to keep the moustache for this movie? Weird times. Anyway, Mission: Impossible had found its stride by this entry, and for the first time a director returned from the previous installment. Part of what’s amazing about the way the movies steadily got better past part three is the fact that every single one of them up to this point had been directed by someone different, but the reason the quality was maintained in spite of director changes was thanks to Tom Cruise, who has remained not only the star but the producer for all of them. The combo of Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie (who also wrote this one, as well as Rogue Nation) seems to be the winning formula Cruise had been committed to finding for so long.

Once again, all the right characters return to make the story compelling: Luther, Benji, Ilsa, and even Solomon Lane, though he’s not the villain at the forefront of the story. The addition of Cavill as Walker was a fine casting choice, and I still think about when he reloads his arms in that washroom fight scene. The ending in the Himalayas is thrilling, but I have to say, I don’t enjoy this one quite as much as Rogue Nation. It is a very good follow-up, but it doesn’t have quite as many well-paced action sequences throughout. Don’t get me wrong, the HALO jump and new motorcycle chase and rooftop pursuit are all great, but the stunts from Rogue Nation just still stand out more to me.

 

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

What I find most impressive about this one is how they found a way to keep the story self contained and never dull or dragged out, despite being branded as a part one initially and having a runtime of nearly three hours! What comes off as distinctly different to me about Dead Reckoning Part One compared to Fallout is how this one sets up the villain and premise in a different way, and it builds to a much more extensive final action sequence, which bridges Cruise’s big stunt (skydiving off a mountain down to a moving train) into him fighting the new villain, Gabriel (Esai Morales) on top of the train, then an epic train derailment. My summary doesn’t really do it all justice, because there’s so much else happening all throughout, that this entry ultimately does feel more epic and higher stakes than the previous one.

A few other new characters are introduced this time, including the main standout, Hayley Atwell’s pickpocket expert Grace, but recurring characters no longer feel like they are immune to the threats posed. Yeah, it’s kind of silly that the entire premise of this franchise hinges on missions that are “impossible” yet the same few characters on these missions always seem to get out of it relatively unscathed by the end, but that doesn’t happen this time. I also really like the opening submarine sequence, which creates some immediate intrigue without it being centered on Ethan Hunt for a change. The stunts are numerous throughout, and while they may not all add up to be greater in their sum than those of Rogue Nation, this movie is undoubtedly one of the most insanely entertaining seventh entries in any movie franchise in history.

 

So, there’s my recap to refresh everyone (including myself) before The Final Reckoning releases. As a bonus, here are my top picks for actors from the franchise who have had supporting roles throughout the films—some of whom you may have forgotten about! I won’t count recurring characters, only one-offs. The reason I want to do this is because The Final Reckoning has what appears to be the most star-studded cast so far, and that’s saying something, considering some of the high-profile actors to pop up in past entries.  

 

-Jean Reno: I had to include someone from the first movie, and this guy is instantly recognizable to me as a familiar face in 90’s action movies. I actually would’ve liked to have seen him return for M: I 2. 

 

 

 

-Anthony Hopkins: he may be in the worst one, but he’s always great! He plays a mission commander in M: I 2 and went uncredited for the role. 

 

 

-Laurence Fishburne: he plays the IMF Director in M: I III, but I’m not sure why they got rid of his character for Ghost Protocol. 

 

 

 

-Greg Grunberg: another small role from M: I III worth mentioning. I had to include one of the J.J. Abrams regulars!

 

 

 

-Josh Holloway: Sawyer from LOST shows up early in Ghost Protocol as an IMF agent, but gets shot by someone who would turn out to be a secondary antagonist…

 

 

 

-Lea Seydoux: enter secondary Ghost Protocol antagonist! Seydoux would become more well known in the next few years from other high profile roles, and would even cross pollinate to the James Bond franchise by playing a Bond girl in Spectre and No Time to Die. 

 

 

-Tom Hollander: I love when this guy just shows up in stuff. I know him best as Beckett in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films, but in Rogue Nation he plays the UK Prime Minister—a pretty high-profile role, but he only appears in this film.

 

-Wes Bentley: in Fallout, we see Ethan’s former wife Julia, still played by Michelle Monaghan, has remarried, and he isn’t just some guy, he’s that guy you might recognize from movies like American Beauty and Interstellar! 

 

-Cary Elwes: wait, who was that guy who played Director of National Intelligence in Dead Reckoning Part One? Was it that same guy who played the lead in The Princess Bride, and the rival storm chaser in Twister, and one of the main roles in the original Saw? Yep, that’s the guy!  

 

-Pom Klementieff: if you didn’t think the French assassin working for Gabriel in Dead Reckoning Part One looked familiar, that’s okay. Had her eyes been magnified and two antennae stuck on her head she might have reminded you of Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy: the role that majorly boosted her career. I just checked and she’s actually returning for The Final Reckoning, which means her role wasn’t just a one-off, so I guess that’s my cue to wrap this up. 

 

Alien Planet: A Retrospective Review

Alien Planet (2005) TV Movie Review

 

Twenty years ago, a two-hour movie premiered on Discovery Channel that did something I had never seen before: it documented a fictional planet and its native inhabitants as if it were real. I saw this before I had discovered the found footage and mockumentary genres, but Alien Planet is classified as “docufiction” because it uses real science and perspectives from valued scientists in different fields to justify and support what is being seen on screen, even though the planet and creatures in question are entirely made up. Though it’s feature length, running 94 minutes without commercials, it’s also classified as a TV special, but it was one I enjoyed so much as a kid that I bought the DVD and watched it over and over again—in fact, it was one of the first DVDs I owned!

In a nutshell, the first mission to a planet called Darwin IV from beginning to end is what’s documented, with the main characters serving as a couple of robotic probes, since this is an unmanned mission. The first of three probes explodes upon entry to the atmosphere due to a malfunction, which is a nice detail to make it seem less like a sci-fi movie a la Forbidden Planet or Avatar or Prometheus and more like a real event. Two other probes are then sent down, one of which is blue, named Leo (as in Leonardo Davinci) and the other is orange, named Ike (as in Isaac Newton). Right away, Leo and Ike are stalked by a mysterious unseen creature (we frequently see from its otherworldly POV) and this sustains an impressive level of mystery, intrigue, and suspense for the majority of the runtime, in addition to the fascinating “probing” of this new world. I won’t spoil too much for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but the teasing of the unseen creature pays off in the end.

The probes are given a bit of personality through their differing appearances, as well as with their AI, but the human quality is spliced in with cutaways to real interviews amid the probes discovering new species and unusual features of the planet. Some of the interview clips are experts speaking generally about intergalactic space travel in a realistic way, and other clips are experts speaking about the fictional creatures as if they were real and they had reviewed the footage we just saw. It’s a clever attempt to add a level of authenticity, and while it sometimes doesn’t quite work to the desired effect, the alternating Darwin IV mission footage and interviews are well balanced. It’s sometimes annoying watching the non-broadcast version when brief moments are teased twice during points when there would have been commercial breaks, but it isn’t too distracting or repetitive, as these effects-heavy docudramas can be. Overall, the pacing is great—or, to use an astronomy term, it’s in the “Goldilocks Zone”—and the narration by John C. McGinley helps take viewers along for the ride without sounding overdramatic.

Alien Planet was based on the book Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV by author Wayne Barlowe, and while there were some notable changes in the transition from page to screen (ex: changing the mission to being unmanned in order to make it more realistic/believable), from what I understand, the ecology of the planet is largely faithful to what Barlowe imagined. I haven’t read the book, but it seems his strange designs for life on Darwin IV remained mostly the same, as he was a visual consultant for the adaptation, and his book contains many images which he drew to accompany the written work. It’s nice to see they actually stuck to his source material instead of just using the basic idea and butchering it, and the changes that were made served the story and the approach to telling it.

Obviously one of the biggest appeals of the show is seeing all the interesting designs for the creatures, and every single one is creative, with thought put into how they fit into their environment and survive. I won’t recount every organism, but a few standouts for me are the noisy, bioluminescent Bladderhorns, the giant jet-like Skewers, and the Godzilla-sized Sea Striders. Though it seems the probes stumble across new animals very quickly, onscreen stats actually show the days of their mission (it ends 160 days in), but we are just seeing the dramatized version with all the good stuff. It uses some documentary tactics, like cameras from “mini-probes” deployed by Ike and Leo, but a lot of the creature scenes are dramatized and shot from a third-person perspective, which I actually appreciate. Had this all been shown in a found-footage manner, it probably would’ve gotten repetitive and been frustrating when it was hard to see the aliens.

Some of the criticism of Alien Planet I’ve seen has been levelled at the strangeness of the designs for the aliens, but I think a lot of that criticism is tenuous. Multiple experts say in their interviews that we would have no idea what life on other planets would look like, and I appreciate that the nature of Darwin IV’s conditions dictates how many of the animals look and behave. Yeah, some of them are a bit odd, but at least they are all original designs and look like they all belong on the same planet. The strangeness of some of them is also part of what made me want to watch Alien Planet again and again as a kid, and what has brought me back to it even all these years later. It took until just my most recent viewing for me to notice the Grove-Back, one of the largest creatures, with elephant-like feet, only has two legs! All this time I thought it was a four-legged animal, but its mindboggling size and design tricked my eyes (especially back when I used to watch it on the tiny 8-inch screen of my portable DVD player). 

Most of the technical methods of bringing Darwin IV to life are above average for TV at the time. The music isn’t particularly incredible, but it has some effective techno vibes and suits the action well. The sound effects, by contrast, are extremely efficacious, and unlike many Discovery shows of this nature, it doesn’t just recycle familiar sound bites or stock creature noises. All the aliens utter unique, otherworldly sounds, many of which add a foreboding quality to their presence, helping them come to life. The probe sound effects, too, are memorable. The clunk of their thrusters rotating really stuck with me, for whatever reason. As for the visual effects, yeah, they are certainly dated by today’s standards, but many of the visuals hold up reasonably well. Some of the environments are real backdrops, and the textures on the probes are pretty convincing. Some of the creatures look a bit plastic and stiff, but even when the camera gets up close, plenty of details remain. Darwin IV is a colourful and bizarre world that’s both startling and fascinating.

There are definitely some quirky aspects to Alien Planet, beyond just the creature designs. For whatever reason, there are multiple parallels drawn and comparisons made to the dinosaurs, from the Arrowtounge being described as the size of a T-rex, to the K-T extinction event being referenced, for…some reason? My theory is they had access to the Discovery Channel library of CGI dinosaur footage from some of the recently released (at the time) shows, and the visuals matched up well with the visuals of the Darwin IV aliens, so they fenagled the narration and interviews to accommodate that footage whenever possible. I suppose many of the creatures possess some dinosaur-like features, although one strange aspect to all the lifeforms is they seem to lack eyes. Given Barlowe is so well versed in sci-fi, maybe it was his way of referencing H.R. Giger’s design for Alien.

Sometimes the narration comes off as unintentionally funny when some ridiculous stuff is said with such sincerity. “On earth, we call them wolves. On Darwin IV, they’re called Prongheads.”  Thankfully, none of the experts who are interviewed are too annoying or questionable; given the premise, having George Lucas speak about alien life doesn’t really undermine the credibility, although I found it a bit odd that the guy who came up with the whole idea, author Wayne Barlowe, only appears briefly one time early on and then once more at the end, but that’s it. Perhaps it was an attempt to make it seem more realistic? What could take some viewers out of the experience is the way some of the experts repeatedly comment on how “strange” the aliens are, as if they don’t truly believe they could exist. My take on it? No, these creatures probably wouldn’t all exist exactly like that on a real alien planet, but if you can suspend your disbelief (a requirement, this is certainly not a documentary by any means) you should be able to just enjoy the expedition.

Even though it’s now 20 years old, and obviously a bit dated in terms of the effects, I think it still holds up pretty well, and is worth checking out whether you haven’t seen it since it was first on TV or if you have never seen it before but are interested in sci-fi. It came out not long after another similar docudrama, Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real (2004), which speculated how dragons may have evolved and lived on Earth, but that one I haven’t been as compelled to watch again. I find it’s more similar to the 2002 miniseries The Future is Wild—only in terms of some of the weird creatures, though. That show I found to be lackluster even back in the 2000s. It is drawn out, tedious, goofy, supported by interviews with uninteresting experts, full of dated effects, and not very believable: everything Alien Planet is not.

I haven’t seen a good docufiction film or TV special like this one in a long time, but Alien Planet is the best one from this 2000s era of science-adjacent specials, and probably the most scientifically-sound one of them all, simply because it could happen one day. I would love to see an update on this special, or a new take on the same premise but with new creatures on a different world. I would even just like to see a new docufiction show or movie that portrays something completely made up in as realistic a manner as possible, because looking back on Alien Planet, it’s a fun way to blend fact and fiction, when done right.