So what's it like?

After several years of hype, Mission: Impossible opened in the UK on the 5th of July. Although it was filmed in Britain it opened in the US in May, and was an instant box office success. With Tom Cruise starring and producing, Brian De Palma directing, and a guaranteed hit theme based on the TV series, Mission: Impossible is another link in the chain of 'package' Hollywood films: all the ingredients but somehow the cake never tastes that good..

Within 20 minutes of the beginning, the entire IMF [Impossible Missions Force] has been wiped out, except for Cruise's Ethan Hunt, leaving the film clear to be a star vehicle. Hunt is identified as a mole by his superiors and 'disavowed', leaving him to complete his own impossible mission to clear his name. Along the way Cruise uses many natty gadgets, including exploding chewing gum ("Just don't chew it"), latex face masks, and perhaps most importantly the latest model Apple PowerBook, that somehow appears every time he needs it, whether in Prague, Washington or London.
Phelps: wiped out with the rest of the IMF woosies, like so many impotent poodles...
Mission: Impossible features some of the most exhilarating action sequences of this year's movies. Helicopters in the Channel Tunnel has to be a first, but note once you've seen the ad on TV, you've seen most of the sequence. Hunt's team breaking into the CIA mainframe computer is also a great sequence, mostly due to De Palma's creative camera work. However, once again, movie characters sitting around surfing the Net - while interesting to us for obvious reasons - is not as powerful as it could be.
Emmanuelle Beart: no sexual chemistry (honest!)
To all those would-be IMF agents out there, the film will no doubt prove a disappointment, in not obeying the laws of the original series. To fresh missionaries a lot of the jargon is confusing. but as with the original series, there are key elements to the Mission: Impossible concept that make it a very attractive plot device. Like James Bond, stock phrases, theme tune and gadgets are a must. Unlike James Bond, Ethan Hunt lacks any sense of humour or irony, as does the film. Don't expect too many laughs with this one.

At only 110 minutes the film has had some pieces of crucial plotting edited out. Unlike the recent Hollywood trend where the characters in action films have developed private lives and domestic arrangements superfluous to the story - as in Heat and The Rock - Mission: Impossible has been cut to the bone. The director himself must have noticed the difficulty in following the plot and every so often has added voice-overs to remind the viewer of sections earlier in the film. How long is the average cinema goer's memory? 110 minutes is a respectable length for any action film, but though there was enough in the plot to confuse, there was not enough to satisfy. Like an episode from a long running series, this film is not complete enough to stand on its own, cue huge marketing campaign, soundtrack on CD, Mission: Impossible game, Tom Cruise spreadeagled across the media.

Tom Cruise is in his element playing the point man Ethan Hunt, who features in every scene, with a myriad of disguises and talents.. As in Cocktail, and The Color of Money Cruise has learnt a set of tricks - cartwheeling on top of a train in this case - which pass for characterisation. What is genuinely unusual about Cruise's role in Mission: Impossible is the absence of any onscreen sexual chemistry between him and his love interest, played by the French actress Emmanuelle Beart. De Palma has evidently realised this and cut the usual interactive scene.

Cruise overdose doesn't stop there. As the producer and male lead, Cruise has dominated its world marketing campaign. Mission: Impossible is Tom Cruise, and Cruise himself has made himself into a commodity to market his baby - even to the extent he has for the first time in history appeared in a television advert related to the film.

Cruise: Spreadeagled across the film and the world's media like some unwelcome infection of the lower abdomen, only wearing Ray Ban Wayfarers...

So all in all, it's a bit of a laugh, despite the huge and bloated advertising campaign that has followed and preceded it. If you like action movies, you'll like it, though it definitely suffers from the absence of cheesy lines. And the music is great.