Mission: Impossible 1 & 3

I’m writing this review because I had recently seen M:I:3, but didn’t feel like commenting on it immediately. Today I picked up M:I:1 from the library and man I gotta get some things off my chest. I’m not going to criticize this franchise; I think it’s great, the theme song really gets me going.

So this M:I:1 is good. What I find interesting about this franchise is that Cruise picks a different director to take on each film, therefore making it harder to denounce any specific director for ruining the films, if one does not go over well. To compare #1 to #3, there are probably an equal amount of similarities and differences. For similarities, there is intrigue (Tom Cruise wearing the awesome fake faces), there are ex-plo-si-ons! (cars crashing and setting on fire, can’t beat that), and there are disloyalties (I’m getting better at not being fooled, haha).

The differences I found were more on the technical side. The cinematography in #1 is more straightforward with baker's dozens of dutch tilts (you’d think De Palma gets off to these angles there are so many). The cinematography in #3 was a lot cooler. J.J. Abrams takes the cake with his lighting, colouring, and composition (no competition). De Palma’s style in comparison seems one dimensional, if I can say that, probably because the guy idolizes the stark, yet efficient stylings of the one and only Howard Hawks and A. Hitchcock (a.k.a. rip-off artist). Another difference is the story. I have to like #1 for the story because it is so much more intricate and detailed than #3. There’s not much mystery in #3 because audiences have been through the same whodunnit twice with M:I.

Side rant, the gadgets used on the film deserve to be singled out. In M:I it’s hilarious how sending e-mails was given such attention. Being released in ’96 when the internet was just breaking into the mainstream made it seem so high tech to connect to other computers through a modem (looky there ma, it’s going at 24.4 kps). The cell phone in #1 is also pretty ancient too, it’s pretty funny watching in now. M:I:3 technology was what ever it wanted to be. I can’t remember anything specific, but it was pretty much anything your eye could imagine.

So, not to ignore M:I:2, because it did happen between these two films, I can’t really comment on it much. I should watch it again, but like I said I needed to say my piece pour numèro un et numèro trois. Les deux sont les bons films, et je crois que la majorité des gens vont l’aimer.

À Bientôt!