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Dom Robinson reviews
Paramount
- Cert:
- Cat.no: PHE 8003
- Running time: 105 minutes
- Year: 1996
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 13 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: 4 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Theatrical Trailer
Director:
- Brian De Palma
(Carlito’s Way, Carrie, The Fury, Scarface, Snake Eyes, The Untouchables)
Producer:
- Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner
Screenplay:
- David Koepp and Robert Towne
Music:
- Danny Elfman (Batman)
Cast:
- Ethan Hunt: Tom Cruise (All The Right Moves, Born on the Fourth of July, Cocktail, The Color of Money, Days of Thunder, Endless Love, Eyes Wide Shut, Far And Away, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Jerry Maguire, Legend, Losin’ It, Magnolia, Mission: Impossible 1 & 2, The Outsiders, Risky Business, Taps, Top Gun)
Jim Phelps: Jon Voight (Anaconda, The Champ, Deliverance, Heat, Midnight Cowboy, Mission: Impossible, The Rainmaker, U-Turn)
Claire: Emmanuelle Beart (J’Embrasse Pas, La Belle Noiseuse, L’Enfer, Manon Des Sources, Mission: Impossible, Nelly and Mr Arnaud, Un Couer En Hiver, Une Femme Francaise)
Kittridge: Henry Czerny (Cold Sweat, Choices of the Heart, The Ice Storm, Mission: Impossible)
Krieger: Jean Reno (The Big Blue, French Kiss, Godzilla, Leon, Les Visiteurs, Mission: Impossible, Nikita, Ronin, Roseanna’s Grave)
Luther: Ving Rhames (Con Air, Dangerous Ground, Deadly Whispers, Entrapment, Mission: Impossible 1 & 2, Out of Sight, Pulp Fiction, Rosewood, Striptease, TV: E.R.)
Mission: Impossible is the big-screen action remake of the classic sixties television series with a new cast, with new gadgets for the nineties, and a new version of Lalo Schifrin’s theme tune updated by U2’s Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. The film also has an original score from Danny Elfman.
The story is quite complex for your typical Hollywood summer blockbuster, the film easily holding its own against 1996’s other offerings including Twister, The Rock and Independence Day. While I was impressed with The Rock, the other two films were tales of plentiful SFX strung together with little or no plot, even if they were an equally good workout for your sound system like this one.
The plot involves the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) on the trail of both parts of a NOC List, a record of all the CIA’s deep cover agents working in Eastern Europe, one half of which has been stolen by Golitsyn, a traitor within the CIA who plans to steal the second half from the Embassy in Prague. The NOC List is split into two for security reasons: the first part which Golitsyn already has contains the code names, but that half is useless without the other which matches up to provide the agents’ true names.
However, as double-cross follows double-cross, and the plan to apprehend Golitsyn goes awry, members of the IMF are getting bumped off at an alarming rate. The question is, as one of the few left alive, can Ethan get to the truth without getting caught as he’s been framed for the deaths of his espionage team? With Tom Cruise in the lead role, is that a question that really needs answering…
The film also contains some fantastic action set-pieces including a chase in the Channel Tunnel between a helicopter and the train itself, as well as what must be the most nail-biting scene in all the films made in 1996 as Tom Cruise and his accomplices attempt to retrive the NOC List from within a unit so secure it makes Fort Knox look like their having an open season. As they begin the operation, Tom Cruise whispers to his men, “From now on in, I want complete silence”. When I saw that in the cinema, not a single person made a sound, which is a rarity in the cinema these days.
For me, Tom Cruise is an actor who never fails to disappoint, and one who has been in the A-list since the role that brought him to fame, as Maverick in Top Gun, and who received an Oscar nomination for his latest film, Jerry Maguire.
If you’re wondering what happened to the original cast of the television series, they all declined to take part as the original plan was to feature them only in the opening scene before killing them off, and replacing them with a new team, and they felt they were worth more than that.
Hence, the 1990’s team is led by Jon Voight as Jim Phelps, who always has to listen to the recordings that are due to self-destruct within five seconds. First making a name for himself in 1969’s Midnight Cowboy, he has recently come to the fore again in films such as Heat and Anaconda.
The rest of the IMF team are rounded out by Emmanuelle Beart as Jim’s wife Claire; Kristin Scott-Thomas who appeared in the worldwide hit, The English Patient; Ingeborge Dapkunaite who starred in 1995’s Burnt By The Sun, Oscar winner of Best Foreign Film; and Emilio Estevez who for some reason appears in an uncredited role.
As Cruise puts the pieces of the puzzle back together he is helped out by two top-line actors who are now making their mark in Hollywood films, Jean Reno and Ving Rhames.
Henry Czerny is Kittridge, the man that the IMF team must answer to and who provides the voice in the film for the “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds”… who deserves to be in many more films than he has been given to date. Also in the extensive cast is established actress Vanessa Redgrave but I won’t reveal the name of her character so as not to spoil part of the plot.
The picture and sound quality of this disc are excellent, and the 2.35:1 widescreen framing is essential for De Palma’s complex visuals. If you’ve only seen this in a pan-and-scan version on video or cropped to 16:9 on BBC1, then you’ve not seen the film properly as it does no justice to the film’s tribute to the original series with its extravagant use of tilted shots. The average bitrate is a fairly steady 7.21Mb/s, rarely deflecting from that.
Don’t be put off with the film being given a PG-certificate either. Despite some rather un-PG-like violence, the BBFC must like Brian De Palma as they awarded this film a PG-certificate in its uncut version, whereas the same film is a PG-13 in the USA (the equivalent of a BBFC 12).
Extras :
Chapters : Only a mere 13 chapters for the 105-minute running time. It’s not enough, but it’s the same amount as the previously-available PAL Laserdisc.
Languages/Subtitles : Dolby Digital 5.1 in English alone. Subtitles are available in English (and hard of hearing), Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.
And there’s more… : Well, a two-minute Theatrical Trailer and that’s it.
Menu : A basic static and silent menu with a shot of the front cover and the usual options.
This DVD release has obviously been scheduled to coincide with the release of Mission: Impossible II, but for my money – and you’ll see if you read that review – the sequel pales in comparison to DePalma’s M:I vision. While the first film does lend itself to a rather over-complex plot, those who stay the course will be richly rewarded and I’d recommend a purchase of this disc over a cinema ticket to see M:I-2 any day.
I would like to see some more extras on Paramount’s DVDs though.
This review will self destruct in five seconds…
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.