Mission: Impossible

Brian De Palma, who revitalized his box-office clout by glamorizing the FBI in The Untouchables, turned to glamorizing the CIA with this 1996 adaptation of another popular 60s TV series. Tom Cruise (who doubled as producer and assumed final cut) heads a team of intelligence operatives who do battle with Russian spies and arms dealers. Robert Towne and David Koepp did separate drafts of the script, and they might as well have been working on separate movies for all the narrative interest and concern for the characters that they generated, but I was entertained by the mise en scene and the action. With Emmanuelle Beart, Jon Voight, and Ving Rhames. 100 min. (JR)

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