For 27 years, agent Ethan Hunt has been racing around the globe to save his skin, that of his associates and above all that of the whole world. A cult character iconized by singular directors who didn’t give up on his interpreter Tom Cruise, Hunt quickly established himself as an essential figure in action cinema, like James Bond and John McClane before him.
To date, the franchise for which the standard is one of the most generous in terms of high altitude sequences, which makes each new episode an unmissable appointment. On the occasion of the release of Mission: Impossible – Mortal Judgment Part 1a look back at the different works which, for the most part, look at each other with immeasurable pleasure, despite the differences in level.
From Tom Cruise’s cut to the use of masks, to stunts, what are the most successful and memorable choices of the saga?
The best director?
If you had to pick just one, it would probably be Brian de Palma. It was he who opened the ball with an episode in which a permanent and invisible threat hovers over Tom Cruise, similar to the one in which Cary Grant tries to escape Death at the heels.
In this first work published in 1996, our hero sees his entire team die from the very first minutes. To find the culprits, Hunt must team up with an enemy spy who may have played a role in the murders of his partners.
Brian De Palma handles the art of fiction wonderfully in this film, especially during the meta introduction which perfectly sums up the deceptions inherent in espionage but above all in the seventh art. The first Mission Impossible It is probably the one that best deceives its viewer. To achieve this he had to be an avowed lover of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, having built much of his career on his obsession with his predecessor’s films.
If De Palma doesn’t stop doubling down on the audience by reminding them that they only see what they decide to show them, even during the successive deaths of Ethan’s team members, the director also manages to pin us in our seat. With each new vision, beads of sweat form on his forehead as the hero infiltrates an ultra-secure room at the CIA headquarters in Langley. The masterful balance between the action scenes and the construction of the shots of Ethan, full of deceptively gullible questioning looks throughout the film, does Mission Impossible the ideal presentation of a character whose gestures and attitudes will be brilliantly reinvented later.
Best opening scene?
If the opening meta of the first work is one of the most memorable, we must admit that that of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, released in 2015, it easily surpasses it. After iconizing Tom Cruise in Jack Recher, Christopher McQuarrie has been doing the same since the introduction of this fifth episode playing on the absence of Ethan Hunt.
With cargo to intercept before a plane takes off, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) desperately await the arrival of their hero. In seconds, Christophe McQuarrie reminds usa mission without Hunt is truly impossible. When Ethan shows up out of nowhere, in the grass and in overalls, the famous notes of Lalo Schifrin are launched – here reproduced by Joe Kraemer – and his teammates, as well as the spectator, can finally catch their breath.
Hunt then begins to do what he does best, which is to recover something that escapes him – here the aforementioned plane – by running at full speed. This sequence then concludes with one of the most impressive stunts of Tom Cruise, suspended in the air during one of the most memorable take-offs of the seventh art.
The best team?
It will, once again, be that of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. The one from the first episode went to shreds from the very first scenes. That of the second was almost non-existent because Tom Cruise took up all the space in John Woo’s feature film. The one in the third was sorely lacking in chemistry and the one in the fourth only laid the groundwork for that of rogue nation, much stronger.
Christopher McQuarrie’s film confirms this for the first time Simon Pegg is an indispensable element in the saga. In this work, Benji Dunn proves that he is much more than the funny service behind his computer Mission: Impossible 3 and that the apprentice spy dreams of acting Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Commandeered by Tom Cruise in front of the superb stage of the Vienna Opera, Benji is the first to join Hunt, hunted by the CIA, in his wanderings. Luther Stickell, a historical figure in the saga, and William Brandt, a former analyst closely linked to the hero’s past, will join them shortly after in Morocco.
While these protagonists make a formidable foursome, a fifth member has clearly tipped the balance in choosing the best team. Ilsa Faust, Ethan Hunt’s alter ego embodied by Rebecca Ferguson, has in fact established herself from the outset as one of the most charismatic characters of the saga. Ambiguous and captivating, she is also the only one able to escape the spy of the IMF agency in the first part of the feature film. Complementary to Ethan Hunt, who feels great during a more dance-like action sequence between the two characters, she Ilsa more than deserved her capital spot in the other episodes.
The best villain?
Also in this case the choice is directed at first glance towards Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Already creepy Harry Brown AND deliver us from evil, Sean Harris finds in the role of Solomon Lane a cold, brilliant and meticulous character, at the head of a Syndicate capable of the worst filth. His gaze, his tone of voice and his way of speaking give the impression that nothing escapes him and that he is in complete control of the course of events and the chaos he is sowing.
However, The award for best villain goes to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman In Mission: Impossible 3released in 2006. The trafficker Owen Davian, who plays, is successful to throw Ethan Hunt into utter anguish, particularly attacking his partner played by Michelle Monaghan. Even when he’s suspended in mid-air by Hunt aboard a plane, Davian remains unmoved. Not very talkative, which doesn’t hurt after Dougray Scott’s incessant monologues in Mission: Impossible 2Davian is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful successes of this work signed by JJ Abrams.
The best waterfall?
Without Tom Cruise’s total involvement in his stunts and the often abundant ideas of the filmmakers who worked on the various episodes, the franchise would not have much interest. Capable of turning a mountaineer’s head, the long sequence on Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is the perfect example.
In this episode released in 2011, the swarm of ideas shown by Brad Bird is widely perceptible in many sequences. After a prison break to a Dean Martin tune and the Kremlin exploding – just that – Tom Cruise finds himself in having to climb the tallest building in the world using high-tech gloves. Obviously not everything goes as planned and Ethan Hunt finds himself once again having to jump into the void, which causes palpitations in the viewer with each viewing.
The best use of masks?
In 1996, Brian De Palma decided to make the masks an essential element of the story Mission Impossible. Inspired by the series created in 1966, this idea was then taken up in all the other episodes and some filmmakers decided to give it more or less importance. Brad Bird remarkably cleverly parasitized their use in the fourth episode, forcing the spies to adapt to do without them.
Probably the most mischievous sequence of masks is that of Mission: Impossible 3. To corner Owen Davian, Ethan Hunt has no choice but to impersonate him. This from a short but very funny comparison between the two versions of the trafficker, during which the real one doesn’t seem at all interested in discovering her perfect replica. Before that, Ethan Hunt has to perform some stunts after putting on Davian’s costume and face, which allows JJ Abrams to give Philip Seymour Hoffman a little climbing session during which he can finally show some expressiveness .
Tom’s best cut?
Mission: Impossible 2, released in 2000, unfortunately it didn’t stand out much on this list. A true ego trip to Tom Cruise’s glory, this work is probably the most romantic but also the most failed, partly due to its caricatured villain, its particularly silly tone and the leading actor’s attitudes reaching the peaks of the navel .
For this it is enough to dwell on his hair in the wind, which gives the impression of being as presumptuous as he is. Always flawless in firefight, which deserve the detour thanks to the presence of master John Woo in the production, this cut easily knocks out even those of the other opusi. Tom Cruise will also try alternatives in the fourth and fifth episodes, which unfortunately failed to match him and disappeared from memory very quickly. This is probably why the comedian opted for refreshments Mission Impossible: Fallout AND Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1.
Top box office results?
fall wins this category with $791.6 million in worldwide box office receipts. Pprotocol Ghost it is in second place with more than $694.7 million. Rogue nation closes the podium with over 682.7 million dollars. Mission: Impossible 2 is in fourth place with 546.3 million greenbacks, Mission Impossible in fifth place with nearly $456 million e mission impossible 3 it finishes far behind with just over $398.4 million in revenue.
Now in cinemas, Mission: Impossible – Mortal Judgment Part 1 risks upsetting this category. Confronting Ethan and his team with a new type of enemy, this seventh installment lines up moments of courage and offers a variation of many iconic sequences from its predecessorsthus establishing itself as a compendium of all that is best in one of the greatest sagas of action cinema. The film finally introduces some new memorable characters, starting with those played by Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff.
Find out below the movie trailer still orchestrated by Christopher McQuarrie, who is now the franchise’s regular director.
Source: Cine Serie
Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.
