Mission: Impossible 25th Anniversary Edition

Very good film and would watch again

I watched this movie back in the day and couldn't follow the plot any more than I could see through a brick wall on a foggy night in old London Town, while wearing sunglasses that somebody had painted over with black paint.I watched it again maybe a decade ago... And still couldn't follow the plot. But it made a little more sense.I watched it again just now, and I wonder what I found so difficult. I mean, I knew who the bad guy was already. That helps. But it's not as convoluted as people make out. It's actually pretty straightforward.They could've made it easier to understand had they embellished a certain key scene with a visual flashback, rather than just an auditory one. That's a turning point that I suspect most viewers miss.And yes, this is perhaps one of the first movies that was shamelessly littered with plot holes so wide that a car could drive into them and disappear. This would become very commonplace in later years to the extent that nowadays you wonder if they've simply created a load of action scenes then tried to join them together with a plot (which, coincidentally, is how this movie was made—they started shooting without a working script).Maybe this is why I could understand the movie better this time around. I've been trained to understand films like this over the years since.But this is not a bad movie at all. It's just that you might have to watch it three times if you want to understand it.

Shot in Prague before it became synonymous with cheap labor and tax breaks for runaway productions, the initial signs were less than promising for Mission: Impossible - rumors of clashes between Cruise and Brian De Palma, the latter pointedly keeping a very low public profile when the film opened, last-minute heavy re-editing and the dropping of Alan Silvestri's original score (not, it has to be said, anywhere near as effective as Danny Elfman's replacement) - yet the result is a lot more fun than it has any real right to be. There's little relation to the original series aside from the title, Lalo Schifrin's theme music and an ill-done by Jim Phelps, here played by Jon Voight rather than Peter Graves - indeed, the original cast turned down offers of cameos in a film which kills off almost the entire Impossible Mission Force in the first twenty minutes so the star can hog the spotlight. But then, in those days Tom Cruise still sold more tickets than anyone else and the film raked it in - as they say in gangster movies, it's nothing personal, just business.Although it was apparently Emmanuelle Beart's role that bore the brunt of the pre-release cuts, Cruise is in more danger of being overshadowed by co-stars Ving Rhames and Jean Reno, neither of whom get as many close-ups but make up for it with much more unforced charisma and screen presence. The plot doesn't always make sense - there's really no reason to break into the CIA's headquarters in Langley to steal a real list of undercover agents' names to use as bait other than allowing the director to stage a Topkapi-inspired high-wire heist - but it just about serves to fill in the gaps between setpieces, including a neat sequence that's pure De Palma where one character's explanation of events is accompanied by visuals gradually piecing together what really happened and a doozey of an action sequence involving a helicopter in the Channel Tunnel that caused the Bond producers to drop their original storyboarded-but-unshot Channel Tunnel pre-title sequence from the script of GoldenEye as well as boasting a neat line in spectacularly breaking windows.No classic but an above-average Summer movie that holds up surprisingly well. Although an improvement over the bare-bones original DVD release (though the transfer of the film itself is identical and hasn't been upgraded), there's a distinct feeling that the reverential special features in this special edition are there merely to reassure Cruise and his fans that he is indeed the most special and wonderful person in the world.

Masterpiece.

Watched this again in Sept 2022 after a recent trip to Prague. Was nice to recognise the streets where some of it was filmed. But honestly, this no longer wow's like it did when it came out.

Good film, pleasing & good restoration of the OCN, a very good audio track of TRUE HD5.1 and some small but INFORMATIVE extras make this a solid purchase on standard BLU-RAY DISC.The first film of the now to be 7 film franchise as Tom Cruise and Company have this new seventh film for release next year, Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible still holds up today as a good and always watchable Spy Thriller. Simple plot of - a international list of real spies identity's called the knock list is out in the open and if other spies get their hands on the actual list then the lives of American/western agents will be exposed and eventually killed, Jon Voigt, Tom Cruise, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Redgrave and Kristen Scott Thomas lead an all star cast here to find and locate the Knock list.There are more bigger stunts and action scenes in the sequels but the thrilling stunts in this first movie are just as good, the opening action scene to try and locate the disc of which the CIA are testing the IMF team, the tense extraction of the real list in the Head quarters of the CIA & the stunning helicopter, train chase scene at the time of making this movie in the mid 90's was amazing so this first entry of the franchise is a lot better than the fourth and fifth films of which they are poor to me. Mission: Impossible - Fall out was a lot better and was a return to form for the producers though, my favorite of all current 6 movies is - Mission: Impossible 3 as the stunts are great and then of course there's John Woo's more violent second film which I also like, a lot better than 4 and 5 .I didn't see this release coming if I'm being honest but I'm well impressed with the overall product, Brian De Palma's Mission Impossible has always been a good film and it was a taste of things to come with the sequels. Good audio and video, small extras, but that doesn't affect the overall product - good stuff indeed and the disc looks as good as it's going to get!

Great storyline, easy to follow which can be difficult when numerous twists and turns.. Flawless acting