Mission: Impossible - Fallout
The Mission: Impossible film series has never failed to bring in big box office, but it hasn't always been a hit with critics or fans of the original TV show. This is the exact opposite of the TV show which won Emmys and a cult following, but never a very wide audience by TV standards.
"Mission: Impossible" made its debut to the world on Saturday, September 17, 1966 at 9:00PM on CBS. While critically acclaimed, the show was not a "hit", appearing only once in the Nielsen Top 30 at #11 in 1968 in a three-way tie with "Bewitched" and "The Red Skelton Hour". Nevertheless, it was cult-popular enough to last a remarkable seven seasons, with a two season revival in the 1980s. The series featured an ensemble cast including Martin Landau, Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Sam Elliot and others as the Impossible Mission Force, a non-governmental agency that took on important covert operations for the U.S. government. In the pilot episode the team has to stop the bad guys who have gotten ahold of not one, but two nuclear weapons.
Unlike other spy movies and TV series, James Bond, for example, the emphasis was on the agency rather than the individual. When the show was transferred to the big screen in 1996, though, the series became a vehicle for leading man Tom Cruise with all other team members relegated to fairly small roles. After a respectable, if convoluted, first entry the series then floundered over a couple more sequels until finally getting on an even keel in 2011 with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout is perhaps the best of the film series to date, mainly because it goes back to the series roots. In this installment, the Impossible Mission Force has to deal with rival agencies like the CIA, and MI6, while trying to stop bad guys who have - you guessed it - not one, but two nuclear weapons.
Part of what makes Mission: Impossible - Fallout so great is that while it features lots of amazing stunts, fights, and car chases, they're all mostly kept within the realm of believability. While other action series like The Fast and the Furious seem to be caught in an ever increasing attempt to top themselves and all other movies with more unbelievable stunts, the Mission: Impossible model of having heroes run across rooftops and get into literal good-old-fashioned cliffhangers, makes the thrills that much greater.
The Good:
"Mission: Impossible" made its debut to the world on Saturday, September 17, 1966 at 9:00PM on CBS. While critically acclaimed, the show was not a "hit", appearing only once in the Nielsen Top 30 at #11 in 1968 in a three-way tie with "Bewitched" and "The Red Skelton Hour". Nevertheless, it was cult-popular enough to last a remarkable seven seasons, with a two season revival in the 1980s. The series featured an ensemble cast including Martin Landau, Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Sam Elliot and others as the Impossible Mission Force, a non-governmental agency that took on important covert operations for the U.S. government. In the pilot episode the team has to stop the bad guys who have gotten ahold of not one, but two nuclear weapons.
Unlike other spy movies and TV series, James Bond, for example, the emphasis was on the agency rather than the individual. When the show was transferred to the big screen in 1996, though, the series became a vehicle for leading man Tom Cruise with all other team members relegated to fairly small roles. After a respectable, if convoluted, first entry the series then floundered over a couple more sequels until finally getting on an even keel in 2011 with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout is perhaps the best of the film series to date, mainly because it goes back to the series roots. In this installment, the Impossible Mission Force has to deal with rival agencies like the CIA, and MI6, while trying to stop bad guys who have - you guessed it - not one, but two nuclear weapons.
Part of what makes Mission: Impossible - Fallout so great is that while it features lots of amazing stunts, fights, and car chases, they're all mostly kept within the realm of believability. While other action series like The Fast and the Furious seem to be caught in an ever increasing attempt to top themselves and all other movies with more unbelievable stunts, the Mission: Impossible model of having heroes run across rooftops and get into literal good-old-fashioned cliffhangers, makes the thrills that much greater.
The Good:
- Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett join the cast
- Thrilling yet (mostly) believable action scenes
- greater role for other IMF team members
- still too focused on Ethan Hunt
- Wolf Blitzer(!) in a bit part as himself
- Dialogue taken directly from A Few Good Men
- Dialogue echoing a famous "Star Trek" quote.
***1/2 out of *****
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