Mission: Impossible (1996)

Directed by: Brian De Palma

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Jean Reno, and Ving Rhames

The CIA has a secret branch called the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).  Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) assembles and leads a team on a mission in Prague to stop an American from selling national intelligence to enemy operatives.  The mission is a disaster, and everyone seems to die except for agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) who fled the scene.  Because of this, the IMF believes that Hunt is the mole who was planning to sell the intelligence.  Now, he must fight to prove his innocence without the help of his agency.  He assembles a team of former agents including Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Franz Krieger (Jean Reno).  They join forces to expose the real mole and clear Hunt’s name.  Mission: Impossible is a cool, sleek action thriller that takes us on a fun ride.  In this remake of the 1960s television series, we get cool special effects, plenty of suspense, and a fresh take on the improbable and implausible.  Tom Cruise is in his prime as a box office star, and it shows in every moment he’s on screen.  While the story is a bit convoluted, it’s nonetheless enjoyable.  The impossible shouldn’t always be explicable, even to moviegoers.  Mission: Impossible gets a 0.03% rating.