REVIEW: Mission: Impossible II [2000]

Who wants to be decent? It shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s seen the movie to read a 2016 interview and learn how screenwriter Robert Towne came aboard John Woo‘s Mission: Impossible II after the big action sequences were already set in stone. His job was to therefore connect those choreographed behemoths into a cohesive enough story to invest audiences beyond the requisite quick-cut fisticuffs and volatile explosions. Towne was more or less set-up to fail and there’s nobody but Tom Cruise to blame, especially since the two worked together to bring…

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REVIEW: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation [2015]

“Face your fate” It’s amazing what a few years can do for a celebrity’s image. From couch-jumping in love to rumors of getting written out of the fourth Mission: Impossible installment despite building the franchise to being the bell of the Hollywood Ball scaling the Burj Khalifa and now hanging from an Airbus A400M Atlas in flight without a stunt double, Tom Cruise epitomizes box office royalty. Hell, there’s even rumblings he’s trying to distance himself from Scientology now—but I won’t hold my breathe with that one. Whatever he does…

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REVIEW: Mission: Impossible III [2006]

“There is a point where bold becomes stupid.” Ving Rhames’s character Luthor speaks the above words and couldn’t be more right. Just by looking at the evolution of the Mission: Impossible series, one can see a bold example of cerebral storytelling shot by virtuoso Brian De Palma and a cold, mechanical showing of a really stupid haircut filmed by John Woo—who still hasn’t matched the brilliance of his final Hong Kong piece Hard Boiled stateside. Mission: Impossible III definitely could have fallen in either camp and my thoughts leaned towards…

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