Mission: Impossible (1996)

I’ve come to find it refreshing to have no connection to certain films’ source material. My only connection to Mission: Impossible is that I know the theme music from the TV show. With no limitations or biases getting in the way of processing this film for what it is, I can say with a clear conscience that this film is convoluted but very entertaining.

Tom Cruise stars as Ethan Hunt, a member of the top secret Impossible Missions Force (IMF), whose team is wiped out during a botched mission to intercept a data file that contains the aliases of many undercover operatives around the world. The job, it turns out, was a setup to draw out a suspected mole. As the lone survivor of his team, the government brands him a traitor and Hunt is thrust into his most difficult mission yet- clearing his name.

If you boil it down to its framework, Mission: Impossible is a spy thriller built around three scenes- the opening job gone wrong, the Langley job (where Cruise dangles in mid-air by a harness), and the climactic train sequence. That’s really all you’re going to remember and for good reason. The job is the only thing that matters; it’s the payoff. All the planning and exposition that comes before each job only exists to help the job itself make sense. The filmmakers may have gone overboard on a few things but it’s all still great fun to watch.

Just like its main character, Mission: Impossible succeeds through a combination of coincidence, luck, and skill. You can debate which ingredient is in greater supply all you want, but all three are in there. Your opinion on this matter depends on your level on cynicism and your ability to not overanalyze a summer popcorn flick.

I liked Vanessa Redgrave’s character. It was a nice twist for a sought-after international criminal to be female. James Bond has the market on egomaniacal men, so kudos to the filmmakers for not being lazy there. Unfortunately, this break from stereotype doesn’t make up for a weak motive by the shadows-lurking villain who’s been trying to frame Ethan Hunt all along.

All things considered, Mission: Impossible is the kind of movie you say ‘sure, why not’ to. It’s nothing to get too excited about but it’s always fun to watch those three tent-pole scenes play out. It will never be considered a classic but it fills the hearts of people my age with nostalgia for the early to mid-90s, when there was still a middle ground between awesome and suck for summer blockbusters.

RATING: 3.25 out of 5

Tarzan (1999)

Having never read any of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan books doesn’t really matter, because most people have a general understanding about what the Ape Man is about. Often times people compare books and movies (I myself am guilty of this from time to time), which defeats the purpose of both mediums. Books and movies exist to tell stories through their own unique elements. We can try to infer what a book might be like based on a movie and we can imagine what we think a movie should be like while we read the book. You can only objectively compare books with other books and movies with other movies. With that in mind, Disney’s Tarzan calls to my mind Lady and the Tramp with sex appeal.

In the 1800s, a British couple and their baby son crash on the shores of the African jungle. After building a shelter, the parents are killed by a leopard but the boy is saved and adopted by a family of gorillas. As a young man, Tarzan saves the life of Jane, the daughter of a British explorer who has anchored offshore. With them is an aggressive game hunter named Clayton, who sets his sights on adding members of Tarzan’s gorilla family to his collection.

How do you make a pacifistic, anti-hunting story cool to your target demographic of rowdy young boys? By having Tarzan glide and slide through the jungle branches like he’s on rollerblades or a skateboard. Maybe I shouldn’t find fault with this but I can’t help myself. I don’t care how callused his feet are or how much moss covers the jungle bark; there’s no way this is remotely possible. Maybe it looks cool at first, but by the end of the movie, Tarzan does it more than enough times for the trick to get old. That’s quite an accomplishment for a movie clocking in at just under 90 minutes!

Tarzan himself is a pretty thin character, so the film really leans on its supporting cast to make the film something special. Jane looks like your typical damsel-in-distress (skinny waist accentuating her developed upper half) but she has brains, wit, and some toughness to help satisfy feminists and cynics alike. The other human characters are generic. Jane’s father feels like a retread of the scatter-brained Maurice and Clayton an oversimplified version of Gaston (both from Beauty and the Beast). Tarzan’s animal friends, for all their modern wit and dialogue, feel like a weak attempt to recreate the magic of The Jungle Book.

As for the usual Disney elements, Tarzan comes up about even. The animation shows signs of progress in blending CGI and traditional animation, but some shots are overdone. Without a big musical hit in a couple of years, Disney pulled out all the stops and signed Phil Collins to write the music. Some of the songs are used as background tracks, rather than being sung by the characters. It sets a mood but the music never really grips you. I hope that is an objective observation and not my indifference for Phil Collins surfacing. The music may have won awards, but I don’t view any of the tunes as among Disney’s best.

As you may suspect, I am wholly indifferent to this film. There is nothing wrong with it per se; it just doesn’t do it for me. It’s loud, colorful, and perfectly fine for entertaining the kids but Disney magic seems to be in short supply in Tarzan. It’s hard to say who is at fault for this. It could be the source material or it could be the Disney treatment of said source material. In the end, it is a tolerable, largely well-made animated film that I will probably watch with my daughter only if she suggests it.

RATING: 3 out of 5

SECOND HELPINGS: Vertigo (1958)

There is something pleasing about watching a master at work. I originally rated this film back when I was in college. Re-watching it all these years later with my wife (who hadn’t seen it before) was a real treat. A modern comparison would be watching The Sixth Sense with someone who doesn’t know what’s coming. But that doesn’t do Vertigo any justice.

Because of how much time had passed between viewings, I had forgotten so many of the nuances that keep this film interesting. Vertigo is a film that creeps along its winding path at a slow but steady pace. There are very few of the ‘gotcha’ moments that fill contemporary suspense thrillers. In fact, Vertigo is almost purely suspense. The thrill comes at the end when you realize what you just experienced.

Hitchcock peppers his film with just enough peculiarity to prevent audiences from slipping into boredom. As events play out, you can’t help but wish things would move along quicker but at the same time you are engrossed by all the details that might be important. In the first half, you are constantly caught off guard by what comes next. The build-up is just so strange that it transfixes you. By the time we reach the mid-film climax, you are locked in and fully invested whatever the second half may bring.

Oh does the second half bring it! The audience is cast back into the murkiness of little details but without as much misdirection. Another revelation lets the audience in on a secret that tantalizes us as we wait for our protagonist to catch on. It’s emotionally and psychologically taxing, leaving us feeling almost as harried as the characters on screen.

I have admired James Stewart’s acting since I started taking movies seriously. He has always been such a believable presence on screen and that is very much the case in Vertigo. As an everyman ex-cop, audiences connect with Stewart because his reactions feel so genuine. His confusion, apprehension, nervousness, and frustration all echo what audiences feel while watching the film.

We don’t just watch the events of Vertigo; we experience them as if we were alongside Stewart. That kind of connection is rare and powerful. It is a doozy of a film that slowly ratchets up the tension while putting pieces together rather than yanking you from one frenetic scenario to the next. This is old-school suspense and it is a beautiful thing.

Original Rating: 4.5 out of 5

New Rating: 4.5 out of 5