Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to figure out everything that is wrong with this movie. As always, should you or any member of your film review team be caught sneaking in the theater, the ticket taker will disavow any knowledge. Good luck!

And with that, your humble reviewer played hookie and ran off to the theater to see Mission Impossible.

Time to put reality on hold. But this is a summer action film; of course, it ain't real. Helicopters can't fly 300 mph in a tunnel right behind a bullet train. Web browsers can't go off and find people...yet. Relax kid, it's only a movie!

Mission largely takes place in Europe and has the look of a European film during those scenes. In America, everything is clean and shiny, but not in dirty old Europe.

Tom Cruise is a member of an Impossible Missions Force (now confirmed as being part of the CIA). The mission he's on goes completely wrong, with much mayhem. Tom now needs to prove he's not the bad guy, catch the bad guys, and save the world as we know it.

This has the feel of a James Bond movie, but it's more gritty. The hero does get bent out of shape, or at least he tries to. Cruise needs to work on this. We have never seen him break that stress barrier and come unglued. It would have helped.

Mission Impossible fans will find much that is wrong with this film, but from the average moviegoer's point of view, it's fun summer entertainment.

Jammed Pipe!

Film Facts

Cast
• Tom Cruise
• Jon Voight
• Henry Czerny
• Emmanuelle Beart
• Jean Reno
• Ving Rhames
• Kristin Scott-Thomas
• Vanessa Redgrave

Directed by Brian De Palma

Released in 1996

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Reviewed by Mongo