Mission: Impossible

Enormous fun. Read full review

Stealth is a key element of tension and, even though DePalma tosses his share of fireballs around, Mission: Impossible gets edgier when it gets quieter. The audience's rapt, empathetic silence while Hunt hangs there in peril proves how well the director does it. [24 May 1996, p.5]

Director Brian De Palma is having too much fun zipping around curves and hitting the accelerator to slow down. He's a supremely confident engineer, and if you're game enough to make a jump for it and hold on, he offers the giddy excitement of watching the ground rush by beneath your dangling feet. Read full review

Exciting, smart and enormously enjoyable. Read full review

A sleek, whooshingly entertaining update of the vintage television series. Read full review

The bottom line on a film like this is, Tom Cruise looks cool and holds our attention while doing neat things that we don't quite understand--doing them so quickly and with so much style that we put our questions on hold, and go with the flow. Read full review

It's a movie of profoundly convoluted pop pleasures. Between dazzling suspense sequences, it invites the audience to work for a good time. Read full review

Stylish, brisk but lacking in human dimension despite an attractive cast. [22 May 1996, p. D1]

Unlike most action films, Mission: Impossible's distinct appeal operates not so much on suspense but on improbability. Read full review

De Palma makes us sweat; slow, quiet scenes are as nerve-bending as occasional explosions and the final, frantic battle. He calls himself a director for hire on projects such as this and "The Untouchables," where he has little input before shooting. But his skill at maintaining tension is his main asset, and he uses it to the max here. [24 May 1996, p.1E]

All Mission Impossible had to do was not self-destruct. Mission accomplished. Does it ignite? Not really, but Tom Cruise's first adventure as a producer has just enough hightech firepower, old-fashioned star power and a director who knows how to harness it all. Read full review

This movie isn't a disaster, but, all things considered, there's little reason to make it a high priority for theatrical viewing. Read full review

Mission: Impossible does provide enough old-fashioned fireworks for a big-budget summer spectacle. But despite the cinematic bravado, this mission ultimately represents a white flag being waved at the notion of updating the TV show. The movie seems to argue that because the Cold War is over, all the good global-conspiracy plots have become obsolete. The intrigue, instead, must turn in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail. [22 May 1996]

De Palma is in fine form here, wittily using visual quotes from ``2001'' to suggest that technology is a spiderweb on which we poor humans wriggle. He balances comedy with nail-biting suspense as ably as Cruise balances his buff bod on that trembling rope. [24 May 1996, p.20]

Mission: Impossible is full of red herrings and MacGuffins, but even if you can't keep track of who's doing what to whom, it's hugely enjoyable for its sheer kinetic power. It's a soulless trinket, and it never really grabs you the way good action films do. But it moves like a demon, and it's consistently dazzling. [22 May 1996, p.1D]

Unfortunately, Mission: Impossible - which assembles a new Impossible Missions Force and plops it down in Kiev, Prague, London and Langley, Va. - doesn't have the momentum or suspense of De Palma's best pictures. It moves, awkwardly at times, from one elaborate set-piece to the next. [22 May 1996, p.E01]

Holes in the script cause the narrative to burp at times. Read full review

Mission: Impossible proves something of a letdown, not just because it's fairly easy to guess who the bad guy is but also because we've hardly gotten to know anyone in the movie well enough to become more than superficially involved with them. Read full review

Whatever the reason for its disappointments, Mission: Impossible is a mission gone awry, prompting you to hope that reruns of its television incarnation will pop up on cable soon. Read full review

Some of the suspense set-pieces are impressive, but the picture would pack a greater wallop if it were stitched together more tightly and consistently. Read full review

The result is a gracefully plotted spy film in the classic mode, with just enough self-consciousness to keep things interesting. Read full review

It'll be a test of whether Cruise's star power and De Palma's ability to seduce audiences with visual style can compensate for a fundamental hollowness at the center. Mission: Impossible plays like a project trying to become a movie and not quite making it. [22 May 1996, p.63]

The movie comes alive in bursts such as a train-top fight hampered by gale-force winds. Cruise's star wattage may hog the show, but it insures that Mission: Impossible won't self-destruct easily. Read full review

Although the film is watchable and, at times, even borderline entertaining, it has its share of problems. Mainly, the filmmakers seem to have had trouble deciding just what kind of movie they were making. [22 May 1996, p.E1]

While Cruise is more than adequate in a part that demands "Top Gun"-style histrionics rather than subtle characterization, the drawbacks of this movie are ultimately overwhelming. After all, entertainment made too difficult is no longer particularly entertaining. [24 May 1996, p.L21]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make heads or tails of this Byzantine thing. [22 May 1996]

Every effect is so calculated that only the conscious minds of filmmakers and viewers are engaged--and not by very much or for very long. Read full review

Humorless, charmless and flat. Read full review

It's the worst kind of convoluted thriller -- it can never unravel satisfactorily because there's nothing simple at its center, just more confusion. Read full review