Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol

Now let’s close out “Mission: Impossible Month” with a bang. It’s time to look at “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” which came out in 2011. This is a pretty tricky thing to pull off, but it has been said that Tom Cruise insisted on doing his own stunt work. You can see that when Ethan Hunt ends up looking like Spiderman when he clings to glass, thousands of feet in the air, which you would think would be CGI. It that’s really Tom Cruise, he seems like a suitable case for treatment.

Even it is or isn’t, the sequence is one of the most hypnotizing sections in a film I’ve seen. The late Roger Ebert even admitted, “In the way it's set up, photographed and edited, it provided me and my vertigo with scary fascination.” The movie has other achieved set portions as well. The movie starts out with Ethan Hunt breaking out of a Russian prison. There is an amazing fight scene inside of a space-age parking garage where moving steel platforms lefts and drops cars, and the fighters jump from one floor to another. There’s a smart moment in the vaults of the Kremlin Archives in which a virtual reality delusion is used to trick a guard. And the scene at the fancy Mumbai party where Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor thinks he’s attracting MI team member Jane, played by Paula Patton (I highly doubt she is related to the late General Patton), in a complexly choreographed diversionary procedure.

Ethan and Jane are joined by Mission comrades Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Benji (Simon Pegg) in an effort to ruin the villain named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who has gotten control of a satellite and control of Russian nuclear codes, and wants to start a nuclear war. His reason, from what I have gathered and can be considered a cliché, is that life on Earth needs to be demolished once in a while to start all over, and Hendricks can’t wait for another asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs to come in his lifetime.

The movie benefits greatly from the amazing performances of the Mission team. Cruise, who is in pain from his wife’s death (remember her from the third movie?), plays the likable man of, if we can say, infinite courage. Simon Pegg, with his owl face and bad temper, is funny as the computer genius Benji, one of those men that can walk into the Burj Khalifa with a laptop and immediately takes over the elevators and security cameras. Paula Patton is a charming Jane, combining sweet steaminess with ferocious hand-to-hand fighting techniques. And Jeremy Renner’s Brandt, coming into the story late as an “analyst” for the IMF secretary, played by Tom Wilkinson, is told to have a great many extra-analytical skills.

Brandt and Benji have a scene that arrives at a new level of action absurdity even for a “Mission: Impossible” movie. Brandt’s mission, and Ethan makes it clear that he has to accept it, is to wear steel net underwear and jump into a ventilating shaft with evil spinning fan blades at the bottom. Benji will stop his fall with a little mobile magnet at the bottom of the shaft, so Brandt can hack into massive computers. Renner does a believable job of looking very scared when he does this.

The movie has an unexpected director: Brad Bird, the same man who gave us such classic animated films like “The Iron Giant,” “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille.” Animation concentrates in action, and his films are known for strong characterization, so I think this was a smart choice of Brad Bird. You’d think he was going to be doing thrillers for years.

Now here is what Ebert said about Cruise, who I said was clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa, supposedly doing his own stunts. “I'm not saying he didn't. No doubt various unseen nets and wires were also used, and at least some CGI. Whatever.” Then again, didn’t Cruise do all of his stunt work in the first movie? Oh well, I guess if you want to believe that Cruise was doing his own stunts in this movie, by all means go ahead because I will.

So that ends “Mission: Impossible Month.” I hope you all enjoyed it and…these reviews will self-destruct in five seconds.
Five, Four, Three, Two, One…GOTCHA!!!!!

Mission: Impossible 3

Ethan Hunt is in some respects the least interested man in action movie history. In the first “Mission: Impossible,” he risked his life to (quoting from Ebert’s original review) “prevent the theft of a computer file containing the code names and real identities of all of America's double agents.” But Ethan must stop this theft after it happens, because first he must “photograph the enemy in the act of stealing the information, and then follow him until he passes it along.” The plot also involves essential uses for latex masks and helicopters, one that flies through the Chunnel from England to France, which is hard, since helicopter blades are wider than the Chunnel.

In “Mission: Impossible 2,” Ethan has to stop a villain who owns a deadly virus: Twenty-four hours after you have been exposed to it, you die. However, Nyah survives by the end of the movie, leaving her available for a sequel, but in “Mission: Impossible 3,” released in 2006, Ethan is engaged to a nurse named Julia, played by Michelle Monaghan, who thinks Ethan is a highway traffic control engineer. (This is going to be a tough one to review. Keep reading to find out why)

Helicopters are involved again, and Ethan becomes a victim of the latex mask trick again, and even uses a latex mask himself, so that everyone else can be tricked and he doesn’t feel so bad. In a nice visual pun, the helicopters come across giant energy-generated windmills in deserts near Berlin that strangely look like deserts near Palm Spring. It’s kind of cool when one propeller slices off another, wouldn’t you agree? Ebert said in his review, “Observing the curious landscape outside Berlin, I was reminded that Citizen Kane built his Xanadu "on the desert coasts of Florida."”

Ethan Hunt’s mission in “Mission: Impossible 3” is to fight the villain Owen Davian, played by the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman (do I have to say why I said this was going to be difficult?) for control of the Rabbit’s Foot. In Ethan’s last line of the movie, after a handful of people have been blown up, shot, crushed and otherwise bothered, he asks his boss Brassel, played by Laurence Fishburne, “What is a Rabbit’s Foot?” Ethan should have known by now that it’s a MacGuffin, just like the virus and the computer file.

Why does Ethan risk his life and lives of the people he love to chase objectives he doesn’t understand? Obviously the answer is that the real objective of all the “Mission: Impossible” movies is to provide a clothesline for some amazing action scenes. Nothing else matters, and illustrative dialogue would only slow the movie down. The formula worked acceptably in “Mission: Impossible,” directed by Brian de Palma, and “Mission: Impossible 2,” directed by John Woo, and I guess it does work up to a certain point in “Mission: Impossible 3,” directed by J.J. Abrams, if what you want is endless, nonstop high-tech action. Even the deadlines are paced up this time. Instead of a 24-hour deadly virus, we have an explosive case that sets off five minutes after it shoots up your nose.

The action takes us to Berlin, Vatican City, Shanghai and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, although there seems to be no real reason to see any of these places except to make stunts involving their landmarks using computer-generated imagery. Here’s what Ebert said: “I did smile at a scene where Ethan parachutes from a building and ends up hanging upside down in his harness in front of a speeding truck. I liked a moment when he jabs a needle of adrenaline into a woman's heart to bring her out of her drugged stupor; Quentin Tarantino should send him a bill. And there is the intriguing speech by an agency techie about the Anti-God Compound, a deadly byproduct of technological overachievement, which might simply destroy everything. If there is an "M:I IV," I recommend the Anti-God Compound as the MacGuffin.”

Ebert also said (which I do see where he is going with), “I didn't expect a coherent story from "Mission: Impossible III," and so I was sort of surprised that the plot hangs together more than in the other two films. I was puzzled, however, by the nature of Ethan's relationship with Julia, his sweet fiancee.” If he belongs to a secret organization that controls his life and can order him around, shouldn’t Julia know that? Or, if not, is it right for them to get married? And when she meets his co-workers from the office, do they all talk like he does, about the fact that if you hit the brakes, it can cause a chain reaction slowing down traffic for hundreds of miles?

These questions are beside the point. Either you want to see mindless action and computer-generated sequences performed with rapid speed and technical accuracy, or you do not. Ebert said that he was getting to a point where he didn’t care. There is a theory that action is exciting and dialogue is boring. Ebert’s theory is “variety is exciting and sameness is boring.” Modern high-tech action sequences are just the same thing over and over again: high-speed chases, desperate gun battles, all possible modes of transportation, falls from high places, deadly deadlines, exotic locations and characters who hardly ever say anything interesting.

I gave positive reviews to “Mission: Impossible” 1 and 2 because they delivered exactly what they promised. But now that I’ve been there, done that, and I’ll just say to look out next week for the finale to “Mission: Impossible Month.”

Mission: Impossible 2

If James Bond is still going to appear in movies at the end of the 21^st century, I bet he will look an awful lot like Ethan Hunt. You could say that Hunt, the hero of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, is a 007 for our time.
 

Definition: Intercourse is more of a surprise and a distraction than a lifestyle. Stunts and special effects don’t distract the plot, but are the plot. The hero’s attention in new user items is geared more towards cybergadgets than sports cars. He isn’t a nationalist working for his government, but a hired agent working for a vague international agency. Most importantly, this agent doesn’t smoke, hardly drinks, and is in the physical condition of a triathlete.

Since I haven’t seen any of the Bond movies, I’ll let the late Roger Ebert go ahead and describe what the new Bond (at the time) looked like through his description: “The new Bond, in short, is a driven, over-achieving professional -- not the sort of gentleman sophisticate the British spy family used to cultivate. His small talk consists not of lascivious puns, but geekspeak. When he raised an eyebrow, it's probably not his, because he's a master of disguise and can hide behind plastic face masks so realistic even his cinematographer doesn't know for sure.”

The first “Mission: Impossible” had a plot no one understood. “Mission: Impossible 2,” released in 2000, has a plot you don’t need to understand. It’s been put together by the expert Hollywood script guy Robert Towne out of trademarks of other movies, most notably from Hitchcock’s “Notorious” in which the he takes the part of the hero first falling in love with the heroine, then cruelly assigns her to resume an old love affair with an ex-lover in order to spy on his scheming plans. In both films, the woman agrees to carry out this plan because she is in love with the hero. In “Notorious,” the hero loses respect for the woman after she does what he asks. The modern hero is too dishonorable to think of this.

Ebert said in his review, “Towne's contribution is quite skillful, especially if it's true, as I've heard, that he had to write around major f/x sequences which director John Woo had already written and fine-tuned.” His strategy is to make Ethan Hunt into a sympathetic yet one-dimensional character, so that motivation and emotion will not be a problem. He’s a cousin of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name – a hero defined not by his values but his actions.

The villain stays in the traditional Bond way: A megalomaniac who wants power or wealth by holding the world payment. In this film, he wants control of a deadly virus, but the virus is what Hitchcock called a MacGuffin. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it will make everyone want it or fear it. Here’s the clever part: the movie only explains little on the details, but smart in the way it uses the virus to create time pressure. An entire day after you’ve been exposed to the virus, you die, and that brings to a showdown right on time which consists of the hero, the villain, the woman the hero loves, the virus, and a ticking clock.

Thandie Newton plays the heroine, and the most significant thing about her character is that she remains alive at the end of the movie, quite possibly so that she can be available for the sequel. Ebert complains, “The Bond girls have had a depressing mortality rate over the years, but remember that 007 was formed in the promiscuous 1960s,” but if you look at Ethan Hunt, he lives in a time where even spies seem to remain in old relationships, maybe because it’s hard to start a new one.

Newton’s character is unique in the sense she plays a key role in the plot, taking her own plan. Ebert says, “Bond girls, even those with formidable fighting skills, were instruments of the plot.” Newton’s Nyah Hall not only requires a name that is pun, but surprisingly makes a one-sided decision that influences the ending of the movie. The playing field will be more level in the “Mission: Impossible” battle of the genders.

For Tom Cruise, this series is a franchise, similar to Mel Gibson in the “Lethal Weapon” franchise. “Mission: Impossible 3” was already starting to get planned, with the great action director, John Woo as the director, and there’s no reason why Tom Cruise could not continue as long as Tom Cruise can still star in the action scenes (or computer-generated parts). This is good for Cruise. By more or less guaranteeing his box office power, it gives him the ability to try out with more offbeat decisions like “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Magnolia.”

As for the movie itself: If the first movie was entertaining as sound, rage and movement, this one is more evolved, more confident, more sure-footed in the sense it marries small character development to flawless action. It is a global movie, flying no flag, requiring little dialogue, featuring characters who, as Ebert says, “are Pavlovian in their motivation.” Ebert also says, “It's more efficient than the Bond pictures, but not as much pure fun. But in this new century, I have a premonition we'll be seeing more efficiency and less fun in a lot of different areas.” The movement started around the time when college students decided management was hotter than literature.

How did “Mission: Impossible 3” turn out? Stay tuned next week to find out what I thought of it.

Captain America

Special treat today: I came back from watching “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” so I will do another “The Avengers” build up review. But first, before I talk about this one, it would be best if I told you what I thought of “Captain America: The First Avenger,” released in 2011.

It was a pleasure to know, once “Captain America: The First Avenger” was being made, that it was going to be a real movie and not a noisy assembly of incomprehensible special effects. No doubt about it, it has a lot of CGI, but what movie nowadays does not? It goes without saying it’s unbelievable. But it has the texture and takes the care of a full-blown movie. Like a hero that we care about and has dimensions, with the weight of the story. Roger Ebert said in his review, “As we plunge ahead into a limitless future of comic-book movies, let this be an inspiration rather than "Thor" or "Green Lantern."”

The words “The First Avenger” are filled with significance for Marvel fans. Before this one was released, there were films inspired by “Iron Man,” “Hulk” and “Thor.” Ones that are still being in the development stages are “Ant-Man” and “Wasp.” This film opens with the discovery of an enormous flying wing surrounded in polar ice, and a gloved hand reaches out to brush away the ice on the window, and there’s Captain America’s shield! Ebert says, “This film's plot involves his origin story and adventures during World War II, and I'm sure we'll discover in sequels that he was revived after the cryogenic nap to crusade again in the new day.”

We open with the classic 90-pound weakling. Comic books around that time had ads which featured muscle men kicking sand into the face of such variety, which were advised to mail-order Charles Atlas for body-building help. Young Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, is a puny Brooklyn kid who gets beat up by bullies. He dreams of joining the Army and defending America against the Nazis. When he gets turned down as 4-F, he tries enlisting again and again, and eventually makes it into basic training, which is the part we see him constantly falling off the rope and bringing up the rear.

However, this kid has got a lot of heart. This fascinates the hot-head Colonel Phillips, played by Tommy Lee Jones, and a scientist named Erskine, played by Stanley Tucci, who supervises a secret government program. Without wasting any more time, and without really giving an explanation, he’s strapped into a menacing casket in Erskine’s laboratory, which gives out sparks and smoke, and is transformed into the new Steve Rogers, now a foot taller and built like Mr. Universe. He gets a costume and a stars-and-stripes shield, which is primarily for him to be highly visible, although the shield has special powers (but only when it’s thrown at the right angle).

Steve’s Army confidante both before and after his transformation is the hot Peggy Carter, played by the attractive Hayley Atwell, whose red lips makes her resemble a classic military pin-up of the period. He narrates their tour of the Brooklyn neighborhoods where he was bullied, and they grow close, but only PG-13 close, because Marvel has apparently thought up that the idea of someone making out on screen is nasty.

Now the full-bodied story comes into play, involving, as all good comic-book movies have to do, a really first-rate villain. This is a Nazi commandant named Johann Schmidt, played by the great Hugo Weaving, who essentially controls his private army and has schemes that are greater than Hitler’s. His soldiers salute him, not Der Fuher, and he has dreams of creating super weapons. Eventually, as the rules of comic book drama require, Captain America has to face off against Schmidt, who is revealed to be Red Skull, whose skin tone, as Ebert describes, “makes him resemble those ducks marinated in red sauce you sometimes see hanging in Chinatown restaurant windows.” Schmidt demonstrates once again that, when it comes to movie villains, you can’t do better than Nazis.

The film fully embodies the Marvel mythology, giving Captain America his sidekick Bucky Barnes, played by Sebastian Stan, not such a kid as he was in the comics. We also meet Howard Stark, played by Dominic Cooper, who supports Erskine’s research and will go on to be the father of Iron Man. And there is Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, another World War II hero who is going to one day have a comic book series of his own, and eventually have his own movie. Jackson has what it takes to play a first-rate superhero. Spoiler alert: at the end of the movie, it shows that Rogers wakes up in a 1940s hospital room. When he realizes that something is wrong, he runs out of the building and finds himself in modern-day Times Square. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents surround him, and Nick Fury comes out informing him that Rogers has been asleep for nearly 70 years. In the post-credit scene, Fury approaches Rogers with a mission with worldwide consequences.

The adventures of Captain America are made-up with first rate CGI and are slightly more reality-leaning than in most superhero movies – which is to say, they’re still wildly ridiculous, but set up and delivered with more control. CGI makes another priceless gift to the movie, by shrinking the 6-foot Chris Evans into a vertically challenged 90-pound weakling, and then bulking him up dramatically into the muscular Captain America. Ebert comments on this, “This is done seamlessly; I doubted there was a single shot in the movie showing Evans as he really is, but no: I learn the full-size Captain is the real Evans, bulked up.”

I enjoyed the movie. I liked the 1940s period costumes and setting, which was new compared to how a good handful of movies are set in modern time. I like the way director Joe Johnston pushed the narrative. I got the idea of a broad story, rather than the impression of a series of sensational set pieces. If Marvel is smart, it will take this and “Iron Man” as its outlines. Go see this if you haven’t, it’s in the top 10 best superhero movies ever made and another one of my favorites.

 

Now we get to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” which premiered yesterday. This one features Rogers, as Ann Hornaday says, “Is forced into all manner of chaotic, cacophonous action.” Hornaday then goes on to say, “A baggy, at times brutal conglomeration of surprisingly deep character development and aggressively percussive action, “The Winter Soldier” is a comic-book movie only in its provenance.” In its relentless violence and dark political subtext, this just might be the most grown-up “The Avengers” episode yet.

“The Winter Soldier” finds Rogers – now completely defrosted after his cryogenic preservation after World War II – jogging around Washington, D.C. Two years have passed since the near-destruction of New York City in “The Avengers,” and he’s still trying to get up to date with the 21^st Century’s music and technology. After having a friendly conversation with fellow war veteran and runner Sam Wilson, played by Anthony Mackie, Steve is picked up by Natasha Romanoff, played by Scarlett Johansson. They’ve got an assignment, this time involving casually saving a ship and the lives of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have been taken hostage.

Just another day’s work for the heroes of the Western World, but Steve suspects that something’s wrong with Natasha when she decides to save the ship’s computer data to her flash drive rather than fighting the Algerian terrorists on the ship. We find out that Steve has every right for that suspicion, as “The Winter Soldier” proves that, even back at the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in what looks like Northern Virginia’s coolest – if vaguely fantastic – office complex, you can’t trust a soul.

One of the great strengths of the Avengers franchise has been its clever casting, and “The Winter Soldier” is no exception. Chris Evans, as Hornaday puts it, “once again brings a clean-cut, straight-shooting air of simplicity to Steve’s principled paragon, even evincing a whiff or two of prissy self-righteousness along the way.” Happily, directors Joe and Anthony Russo, working off a script done by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, have decided to make “The Winter Soldier” both for Steve and Natasha, who Johansson plays continually the one to steal the movie with her martial arts moves and hot, smoking one-liners. If any director was thinking that Black Widow deserves her own movie, this film is your proof; best to get started right away.

Other great S.H.I.E.L.D. characters are on deck here, including Nick Fury and Maria Hill, played by the gorgeous Cobie Smulders (who you might remember as Robin Scherbatsky from the hit television sitcom "How I Met Your Mother"), and viewers might want to hang on for the loss of Maria’s old work partner, Clark Gregg’s still-mourned Phil Coulson. But it’s the newcomers who make the biggest impact on “The Winter Soldier,” especially the amazing Robert Redford, who plays Fury’s longtime colleague and World Security Council leader Alexander Pierce with careful charm and cool silence. Also Mackie convincingly introduces a new character, the Falcon, with appealing, unforced charisma and, as Hornaday describes, “The grace of a titanium Icarus.”

For a script that apparently was in the development stages for a few years, “The Winter Soldier” uncannily channels into anxieties having not only to do with post-9/11 arguments about security and freedom, but also Obama-era murmur strikes and Snowden-era privacy. Of course, there are moments that, in their stiff writing and ingenious staging, recall the icy-hot paranoid thrillers that Redford himself made back in the 1970s. 

But unless audiences think that “The Winter Soldier” will make the mistake of taking itself way too serious, the filmmakers make sure that for every serious moment there is at least one joke (a scene set in a bunker full of ‘70s-era computer equipment is very strong, as is a fascinatingly looking Air and Space Museum exhibit dedicated to Rogers’s career) and one-and-a-half scenes of thrashing, fist-fighting action. Hornaday does comment that, "At a running time of over two hours, “The Winter Soldier” easily could have trimmed its long-winded action set pieces, extravaganzas of promiscuous gunplay, all-engulfing fireballs and loud lashings of shattered glass that begin to feel repetitive by the film’s Big Finish, a fight that plays out with over-the-top violence that’s both cartoonish and repellently brutalizing." Now, I have to admit that I thought the action in this movie was second only to "The Avengers." It was fast-paced, edge of your seat, adrenaline rushing enjoyment, since whenever Captain America punched someone, you feel the impact. Take my advice, don't hate on the action in this movie.

For all of its overstatements, “The Winter Soldier” is excellently made well-acted, nearly setting up the next few installments with just the right tempting sense of ongoing mystery. As ever, perhaps the biggest lingering question has to do with whether S.H.I.E.L.D.’s sharp-elbowed superheroes will work together as a functional team or go their own separate ways. As “The Winter Soldier” shows, often with a punishing vengeance, just because you share a universe doesn’t necessarily mean that you play well with others.

Spoiler alert: A mid-credits scene takes place in a HYDRA lab, where Baron von Strucker, played by Thomas Kretschmann, is keeping Loki’s scepter and two prisoners: Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). After the credits, Bucky visits Captain America’s exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum to learn about his past. Also, the very attractive Emily VanCamp is in the movie playing Agent 13.

In the end, I liked “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” better, and it belongs in the top 5 best superhero movies. I personally think that this is the second best Marvel movie ever made and it's another of my favorites. I will reveal what I think is the best later on, but I think that everyone can guess which one I'm talking about. This is a great start to the comic book movies this year. I highly recommend you go to the theaters and check this one out. You will believe me when I say this is the best movie to build up to “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Make sure you don't leave the theater to get more snacks from the concession stand, because this is a very fast-paced movie. Why would you even do that anyway? However, we are not done yet, for I still have to review “Guardians of the Galaxy” when that is released. So sit tight, because we still have some ways to go. Stay tuned next week when I continue “Mission: Impossible Month.”

Mission: Impossible

Your mission should you choose to accept it. Dedicate the entire month of April to one of the best action-packed franchises based on a hit television show from the 1960s. That is, of course, none other than “Mission: Impossible.” This series kicked off with the very first film released in 1996. The story is a nearly impenetrable labyrinth of post-Cold War double-dealing, but the details hardly matter. It’s all a build up to the chase sequences and a delicate computer theft operation, intercut with that most reliable of spy movie standbys, the midnight rendezvous under a street lamp in a cold foreign capital.

Tom Cruise (an actor who I think is there for girls to go crazy over) plays Ethan Hunt, a professional spy whose assignment, which he chooses to accept, is to prevent the theft of a computer file containing the code names and real identities of all of America’s double agents. It’s not enough to simply stop the guy. Cruise and his team (who consists of Jon Voight, Kristen Scott-Thomas and Emmanuelle Beart) are asked to photograph the enemy in the act of stealing the information, and then follow him until it passes along. This process involves a check list of Cold War spycraft and clichés: Eye glasses with built-in TV cameras, concealed microphones, laptop computers, agents in elaborate disguise, exploding cars, knifings, shootings, bodies toppling in the river, etc. Of course the whole sequence centers on a diplomatic reception in Prague.

Because “Mission: Impossible” was directed by the great Brian De Palma, who Ebert describes as “a master of genre thrillers and sly Hitchcockian wit,” it’s actually a nearly impossible mission to take the plot seriously.

He is more concerned with style than story, which is smart because if this movie stopped and took a moment to explain what is going on, it would take too long.

There are a number of double-reverses in the first half hour, where we learn to accept nothing but face value (not even the faces, since they might be a mask). And the momentum of the visuals doesn’t make us ask logical questions, for instance, is physically copying a computer file onto another disc the only way to steal it? “Mission: Impossible” is all superficial surface and technical skill. The characters are not very interesting (except for Vanessa Redgrave, as an information broker, and Jon Voight, who expresses a sad boredom in a film too impatient for exhaustion of any kind). The plot is impossible to follow. The various strategies of Cruise and his allies and foes don’t stand up under inspection. And none of that matters.

This is a movie that exists in the instant, and we must exist in the instant to enjoy it. Any troubling questions from earlier in the film must be tightly withdrawn.

De Palma is an expert at sustained nonverbal action sequences, and there are three in this film: The opening scenario at the diplomatic reception; a delicate act of computer theft; and a chase in which a helicopter follows a high-speed London-Paris train into the Chunnel with Cruise and a bad guy clinging to the top of it.

Ebert said in his review, “The computer theft scene will ring a bell with anyone who has seen "Rififi" (1954) or "Topkapi" (1964), both by Jules Dassin, who became famous for his extended theft sequences done in total silence."Topkapi" also used the device of suspending a thief from a hole in the ceiling, to avoid anti-theft devices on the floor.” This time, De Palma gives us a computer “safe room” rigged so that the alarms will sound at any noise above a certain chatter level, any pressure on the floor, or any change in the temperature. Cruise hangs in a harness while carefully inserting a blank disc and making a copy of the file.

Of course it’s convenient that the chatter level is set high enough that it isn’t triggered by the noise of a computer copying a disc – which is precisely what it should be guarding against. Convenient, too, that the infra-red rays guarding the ceiling hatch can be so conveniently handled with. And very convenient for the audience that the rays are made visible to a normal eye. Ebert recommends, “If you want to see infra-red rays -- really -- exploited in a heist movie, have a look at "Grand Slam"(1968).”

If the heist has been done before, and better, not even the James Bond films have ever given us anything quite like the ending chase sequence, with a bad guy in a helicopter flying into the Chunnel linking Britain to France. Earlier it’s been established that the train through Britain is traveling so fast that Cruise, clinging to it, might easily be blown off. Ebert said in his review, “This will cheer the film’s British viewers, who can forget a moment that the Chunnel train goes that fast only on the French side, since the high-speed tracks on the Britain side have not yet been completed. (Inaugurating the Chunnel, Francois Mitter and wickedly described a traveler "Speeding through France and then enjoying a leisurely view of the British countryside").”

No matter. The train goes fast, and the helicopter follows it right under the Chunnel, and De Palma’s special effects (by Industrial Light and Magic) are clever for obscuring the scale involved, since a helicopter’s blades would obviously not fit into a tunnel – but then why, Ebert asks, “am I quibbling, since the whole stunt is obviously impossible?”

The bottom line on a film like this is, Tom Cruise looks cool and holds our attention while doing neat things that we don’t quite understand – doing them so quickly and with so much style that we put our questions on hold, and go with the flow. When the movie is over, it turns out there wasn’t anything except the flow. Our relief, Ebert guessed, is that we had fun going with it.

If you haven’t seen “Mission: Impossible” yet, I highly recommend you watch it, it’s really good, especially if you’re a fan of Tom Cruise. Stay tuned for I will review the other films in the series for “Mission: Impossible Month.”