Image via Complex Original
This weekend, ubiquitous veteran Tom Cruise is coming through with another Mission: Impossible movie. It's only the fifth one, even though the franchise itself is now 19 years old. And it's pretty great. Watching Tom hang off a plane (because I guess, he really has nothing else to do these days) I had a realization: Mission: Impossible, as anchored by Tom Cruise for two decades now, is on the lowest of keys, the best action franchise of all time. It's empirical, really. Five films, no duds, and a shit load of fun. The closest the series ever comes to falling off is at the midway point, which saw Cruise's Ethan Hunt trade in climbing mountains and covert European jet-setting for married life. It's kind of like when Future was thisclose to settling down with Ciara and made Honest. It's a fine effort, but it's not him at his best, you know?
Thankfully, the films that have followed Mission: Impossible III have shit back on a 56 Nights, Dirty Sprite 2 level, back to the basics, with everything that made these movies fun to begin with: insane, acrobatic stunts, inventive heists, secret agents who seem to have an endless supply of other people's faces as masks, and once again, Tom Cruise not giving a single fuck about his life. The quality percentage of this series is just unfuckwithable. And Tom says there's a sixth already on the way? Long live Ethan Hunt. Now, allow me to convince you that this small little series that only pops up every half-decade or so is actually the best of its genre.
A wide range of rotating directors bring new flavor to each film.
Brian De Palma. John Woo. J.J. Abrams. Brad Bird. Christopher McQuarrie. All auteurs (McQuarrie's got the lightest resumé, but one that includes writing The Usual Suspects, so), with wiiiillllldly distinctive flavors. As such, each MI film has a wildly different flavor while more or less retaining some semblance of a consistent tone. Plus face-masks. And Ving Rhames. De Palma made a straight up espionage throwback; J.J. made a 90-minute episode of Alias (De Palma's shade-infused words, not mine). Brad Bird successfully brought all the techniques from directing animated features like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles into his first foray into the live action world to create the series' most vibrant set and multi-layered set-pieces. McQuarrie's new film is a winning marriage of both De Palma and Bird's sensibilities. And John Woo? Mission: Impossible 2 should, on paper, be ridiculous and overwrought in the way that so many 2000-era action movies are. (Robert Towne, the guy who wrote Chinatown, even admitted that the action scenes were already written and he was just brought on to create a story around them, lol.) Instead, in Woo's legendary, action surgeon's hands, it's fucking operatic. It boldly goes big and completely lands it—it might be the best out of all five. No Mission should ever have the same director, tbh.
One word: longevity.
Mission: Impossible: 1996
Mission: Impossible II: 2000
Mission: Impossible III: 2006
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol: 2011
Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation: 2015
The longest gap between Mission films is six years; the shortest is four. Considering each film more or less met and exceeded expectations at the box office, that's one hell of a feat—and one hell of a gamble. Tom Cruise is one of the Last Real Action Stars alive but yet and still, a franchise based on a '60s series that few people even really remember isn't the sturdiest hook to hang a hat on. Ethan Hunt is no James Bond, name-recognition wise. And yet, whenever Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames return, moviegoers are there with them. Why? In addition to, at this point, quality assurance, there's also an inherent guarantee that each film is a full meal. These days action movies with franchising on the brain almost underfeed to keep you hooked for a sequel that'll be fast-food broiled and delivered within the next two-and-a-half years. Each Ethan Hunt adventure, on the other hand, is like a steak dinner. This series takes breaks because it can fucking afford to. No cliffhangers needed.
The tone is perfect.
What's that, you said? "But what about Bond?" Well that's an eternal pop culture staple, no doubt. But consistency-wise, MI might take the title. The thing about most Bond movies/eras is, they're either too silly or too serious. Is it unfair to pit a five-film series against one that's about to hit 24? Fine let's size it down—the first Mission came out during Pierce Brosnan's reign; Daniel Craig's fourth outing drops this fall. That window saw the release of both Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace. (It should be noted that Rogue Nation includes a spectacularly tense opera house set piece that completely embarrasses a similar scene in Quantum.) Meanwhile, while each MI flick varies in tone—with a new auteur taking the reign each time, of course they do—for the most part it's an even mix of what the best action films should be, serious enough that we're invested enough in the plot, but with room for fun (banter both of the team and sensual variety) and more importantly, action scenes that are less burdened with like, saving the planet from extinction and thus give room for Tom Cruise to fuck around and endanger his life on set all for our IMAX viewing pleasure. Speaking of...
Tom Cruise's stunt game is unparalleled.
Tom Cruise is the #1 Stunna. The running joke is that, as Mission II's villain hilariously mocks in a great meta moment, Cruise's Ethan Hunt would rather engage in "aerobatic nonsense," accomplishing heists through misdirection in lieu of confrontation. So basically, dude's schtick is an excuse for a show-stopping sequence, but those sequences never feel superfluous or hackneyed. Tom Cruise loves to do all of these stunts himself (effectively fucking up the production's insurance costs), like scaling the Burj Khalifa. Or hanging off the side of a fucking plane. But his insanity is our entertainment, creating sequences that are even more engrossing in their Christohper Nolan-esque emphasis on practical stunts over CGI. Go back and watch the first film, even retrospectively quaint shit like robbing CIA headquarters holds up as both tense and respectable for the IRL physical effort.
The worst film in the series is still kinda fire.
As a J.J. Abrams fanboy it hurts me to my heart to say this, but facts are facts: MI III—also his first directorial effort—is easily the weakest in the bunch. It's also the most serious of the bunch, so read into that what you will about where the effectiveness in these films really lies. It's like a B- film though. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman does great work as the film's villain, all casual menace and matter-of-factly threatening. The action is well-shot, well choreographed. But when you rewatch each of these movies back-to-back, the flaw in this movie becomes obvious. It's too joyless, too...well, banal. J.J. specializes in making highly enjoyable films/TV shows that are deceptively light on their feet, even lighter on actual plot (his MacGuffin game is unmatched), but it just doesn't work within the context of this franchise.
The setpieces, namely a drawn out plot to kidnap Hoffman's Owen Davian and then the latter's escape via siege feel blatantly contrived—there's just a lot of people running back and forth—and sans awe-inspiring grandeur. (The bridge scene involves Tom Cruise running to fend off Davian's rescuers only to run back to the car he just left for a heavy-duty assault rifle, complete with dramatic leaps over holes in the bridge. It's very frustrating.) J.J. likes to ground his films in a super-personal, romantic element, so it's easy to see why he married Ethan Hunt off. Too bad he did so via the consistently bland Michelle Monaghan. And the tone, well, it's even more forgivable—this one was made when poppin' action franchises were the likes of the Bourne series, after all. Still, nose-inserted brain bombs, and one hell of an in-media-res opening; that gun-toss...it's very watchable.
Now contrast that with a fellow action franchise like, say the Die Hard, which boasts one of the best action films of all time...and then three more which are interchangeably bad amongst fans and a fifth I like to pretend doesn't exist. MI can't be stopped.