Here I go again approaching another popular film franchise in the wrong order.  Further, this review of Mission: Impossible (1996), the first in the series, is not even timely.  If I really wanted to do this correctly, I should have watched this before Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.  Oh well.  Honestly, I do not have much more to say about these stories, mostly because I am not all that entertained by them.  As such, perhaps I should count it as a blessing that the original Mission: Impossible is under two hours long, unlike the over three-hour marathon that is the latest entry.  I, for one, hope it truly is the last, and maybe someday I will get around to looking at the others.

What we look at first in Mission: Impossible is a team of Impossible Missions Force (IMF) agents completing a job in Kiev, Ukraine.  It is led by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a part of it.  Once the opening credits are complete, Jim accepts another task, this time in Prague, Czech Republic.  Their target is a rogue IMF agent named Alexander Golitsyn (Marcel Iureş) that their director, Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), suspects to be trying to steal the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) non-official cover (NOC) list.  With this information, Alexander can profit a great deal by selling it and endanger intelligence assets worldwide.  With Ehtan posing as a United States Senator, he and teammate Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott Thomas) infiltrate the secret location where the data is stored and hope to catch Alexander in the act.  However, shortly after Alexander hacks the computer and gets what he is looking for, Jim’s team begins dying one-by-one, starting with Jim.  Ethan manages to survive and calls Eugene to report the disaster.  Eugene orders Ethan to meet in one hour.  Once together, Ethan learns that the whole thing had been a set up to find a mole in their ranks.  Because he is the last one standing, he is a natural suspect.  Using some of his spy gadgets, he escapes and returns to their safe house in order to try to begin to unravel what has happened.  Eugene did give a clue, mentioning the mole had been working with an arms dealer named Max (Vanessa Redgrave) as part of something called “Job 314.”  Spotting a Bible on the shelf, Ethan realizes that this refers to Scripture, as in Job 3:14.  I wish this had a more Christian element to it, but alas, no.  Instead, he uses the verse to contact this Max person, warning against using any information gained from the NOC list.  As he is dozing off, he is awakened by Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart), Jim’s wife and a part of the team.  Ethan is immediately suspicious because he thought he had seen her die.  Yet, he reasons that if Eugene believes him to be the traitor, then she must be okay.  They then work together to set up the meeting with Max, who does not believe Ethan when he tells her that she should not try to access the desk.  Within minutes of doing so, a group of IMF agents raid the hotel and Ethan and Max must flee.  Thinking that helping Max will get Ethan closer to Job, Ethan promises that he will obtain an untraceable list.  This means Ethan must recruit some others, namely extra muscle with Franz Krieger (Jean Reno) and computer expert Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), both disavowed IMF agents.  Despite their freelance status, so to speak, they believe Ethan’s plan to get the NOC list insane because it involves breaking into the most secure vault in Langley, Virginia, the headquarters of the CIA.  If you are at all familiar with this film (and I hope you are because I plan on using this as shorthand), this is the scene wherein Ethan is lowered into a computer room that senses changes in temperature from human body heat, and is pressure and sound sensitive.  Nonetheless, they get what they need and head back to Europe meet with Max.  While waiting, Claire, Ethan, and Luther see a news story on the television involving Ethan’s parents being arrested for drug smuggling.  Ethan knows this is Eugene trying to lure his suspect into the open.  On the other hand, it is Ethan that wants Eugene to come to London, staying on the phone long enough to be traced to the city.  Upon hanging up, Ethan is greeted by Jim, to the former’s shock.  As they talk, Jim implicates Eugene as the one who shot him, though Ethan is imagining the scenario with Jim as the mastermind.  This is because Ethan noticed earlier that the Bible he referenced to find Max came from a hotel Jim had said he visited prior to the botched Prague mission.  Meanwhile, Ethan has surreptitiously invited Eugene to the train to Paris on which he plans to meet with Max and get the money for the NOC list.  Also coming is Claire who, when she spots Eugene, gets up to warn Jim.  Instead, she finds a disguised Ethan, who has just heard her admit to being part of the plot to steal the list and get rich.  The real Jim also shows up, murders Claire, and knocks out Ethan.  When Ethan comes to, Eugene is trying to escape from the high-speed rail car onto a helicopter being piloted by Franz.  There is a bunch of action stuff that happens here, the long and short of it is that Franz and Jim crash and burn, literally.  Eugene also arrests Max, though it is apparent that an exchange of information will keep her from custody.  We close with Luther, now reinstated into the IMF, trying to convince Ethan to rejoin the agency.  Ethan says no and walks away.

Since we know they made seven more of these, we can be completely sure that Ethan does not walk away permanently at the end of Mission: Impossible, even if I wish that was the choice he made.  I can only speculate as to why he answers as he does.  To do so, I will return to something Eugene says when trying to think of how he can get at Ethan.  Specifically, Eugene says that everyone has something that is important to them.  In Ethan’s case, it turns out to be his parents.  Thus, I suppose the reason for not wanting to work as a covert operative anymore is that he tends to care about people too much?  If so, I would tell him good, that is how God made us.  Of course, there is a balance we must maintain.  Not all forms of relationship are healthy, and caring for someone “too much” can lead to an obsession.  At the same time, it is clear that he will go to great lengths for the people he loves.  One of the ways in which the Church defines love is by not only placing the needs of others above our own, but seeking the best for that person.  When that caring turns to obsession, I would argue that feeling is not love but selfishness.  It is the kind of selfishness that gets somebody like Jim, who had by all reports served his country with distinction and had been a mentor to Ethan, to betray his country.  Such are the wages of sin, but true love never leads someone in that direction.  Though Ethan is trying to clear his own name, he also does so for Luther, which, admittedly, makes Ethan’s decision at the end more puzzling.  I also have trouble rooting for spies sometimes because their job involves deception.  Nonetheless, Ethan has a good and trusting heart, and there is something to be said for such nobility.

Yes, Ethan has a noble heart in Mission: Impossible, though it is difficult for me to use that word in connection to this movie or any of its cinematic cousins.  This one is a little more tolerable than the other ones I have seen if only for its relative brevity.  The only other thing to commend it is its action, though I am rarely satisfied by that being the only quality in a film.