The Mission Impossible film series has defied the traditional logic of film sequels. A film series isn’t supposed to get better as the number of the film goes up. So how the hell are the last 3 Mission: Impossible films superior and more consistent than the first 3!? There is a shift in tone and, perhaps most importantly, the realization of what a Mission: Impossible movie should be. I had really thought the series had run its course after Mission: Impossible 3 in 2006, that maybe it was getting to be a tired series and didn’t have much more to offer audiences. I could not have been more wrong.
The first 3 films of the series are unquestionably of varying quality and consistency. The first film, directed by Brian De Palma, is obviously superb and sets the tone for the entire series. Ethan Hunt must clear his name when most of his IMF team is wiped out. It offers superb set pieces, including one of the most memorable of all time, where Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is lowered into the computer vault at CIA headquarters in Langley. The film delivers action, twists and intrigue a plenty. Mission: Impossible 2, directed by John Woo doesn’t even feel like it belongs in the same series. Ethan Hunt must stop a former IMF agent from stealing an engineered doomsday virus and the cure and trying to market them, convincing the same former agents ex girlfriend to spy on him… yeah… It takes itself far to seriously and portrays Hunt as a hyper macho superhero, who apparently likes to free climb treacherous cliffs on his vacation days. Where the first movie didn’t have Hunt fire a gun once, this one has turned is a decidedly trigger happy affair, wherein wields a handgun in each hand during firefights!? Mission: Impossible 3 was a decidedly better offering, directed by JJ Abrams. Ethan Hunt has a new wife, is out of the field and has decided to settle down. He is dragged back into his former spy world to rescue his protege and goes toe to toe with a truly frightening arms dealer who takes Hunt’s wife hostage in order to leverage him into stealing a mystery MacGuffin weapon. This one was darker than the first two tonally, raising the stakes by having the arms dealer threaten Ethan’s wife. The first three films are intentionally very different, with various directors brought in to lend their own tone and feel to each Mission. The movies take themselves too seriously and are too focused on Hunt, leaving his teams a little too much on the periphery of the action. When the credits rolled on M:I 3 in 2006, I left the theater satisfied, but with the distinct feeling that the series had run it’s course, as I’m sure many did. I am very glad to have been proven wrong.
I really get the impression that the creative team behind Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol didn’t want to make a Mission: Impossible movie unless it was worth doing right. Since many people were probably feeling the way I was about the series, they knew they had to deliver not only in a big way, but deliver a Mission: Impossible movie in it’s ideal form. Spoiler alert: they did. In a big way. I think there was an understanding that a subtle but distinct and important tonal shift needed to take place if another M:I movie was to be justified. The first shift that was made was in the character of Ethan Hunt himself.
In the first 3 movies Ethan Hunt is a thrill seeking, daredevil, hyper macho superhero. As previously mentioned, he took vacations free climbing freaking cliffs! In Ghost Protocol we are presented a more human Ethan Hunt. When this new Ethan Hunt is tasked with scaling the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world to reach a computer server room, he is obviously reluctant. He briefly looks around seeing if anyone else on the team wants to make the climb. He asks about accessing the server room by other means, and looks genuinely dismayed at having to eventually climb the building. When I first saw Ghost Protocol I made note of the difference in this character, because I thought the Ethan Hunt of M:I 2 would probably be out galavanting on the outside of this building on his lunch hour. It made an impression on me that he was now somewhat afraid of such a task. A scene such as this is doubly effective when the character we are watching is also afraid of the fear inducing task at hand. This is carried through the two subsequent movies, where Hunt is somewhat reluctant to complete these insane tasks, but that is outweighed by his ragged determination to complete his mission at all costs. The next factor in retooling the franchise for Ghost Protocol was a shift in tone and the addition of a sense of humour.
I envision a realization when they were making Ghost Protocol that the previous movies took themselves too seriously. They understood that they were talking about a franchise which used masks to deceive villains and audiences. Maybe we can crack a smile, shrug, make a gesture? It’s all in good fun and in the spirit of a good popcorn movie after all. If you look at some of Tom Cruises previous movies before Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, there is a sense of humour developing, which I think greatly affected Ghost Protocol. Cruise appeared in Tropic Thunder as an evil dancing movie studio executive, followed by a crazy, outlandish rock star in Rock of Ages, after which, most importantly he played a spy in a lighthearted action romantic comedy Knight and Day. His character in Knight and Day was very casual, polite and friendly, all while engaged in firefights with the bad guys, captured and hanging upside down and all sorts of extreme high pressure situations. For me, this series of movies marked a shift where Cruise didn’t take himself too seriously in his roles. The first evidence of this in Mission: Impossible is during the prison break early in Ghost Protocol, which serves as our reintroduction to Ethan Hunt. He is waiting for Simon Pegg’s Benji to open a cell block door so he can rescue his informant and Benji is reluctant to do so. Hunt leans against a railing and looks over at a panicked prison guard in his office and shrugs to him, as if to say “I know, can you believe this guy?.” Or a personal favourite, at the climax of the film where Ethan has bested the baddie in fisticuffs to take away the nuclear launch control, hits the disarm button and yells “mission accomplished!” This small gesture informs the audience very subtly that this is a different Ethan Hunt than we have seen in the past. These sort of gestures and cues continue through Ghost Protocol and into Rogue Nation and Fallout.
The final shift that becomes apparent in Ghost Protocol and continues forward in the series is the emphasis of the team. In the first movie, most of Hunt’s team is murdered early on, and he eventually forms a new team, half of which betrays him. Hunt is essentially left to foil the plot on his own, with some, and I emphasize SOME, help from Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell, who becomes the only other mainstay of the series other than Hunt himself. I say “some” help because I didn’t see Luther up on the roof of that train fighting off the helicopter or participating in the action in any meaningful way. The same goes for Mission: Impossible 2 and 3. There are other team members who help in the obligatory heist set pieces or Benji helping Hunt locate his kidnapped wife from headquarters back home (the good IT chap Benji is). But when it boiled down to the big moments of the films, the team was always in the periphery, leaving all the macho superhero gunslinging action to Mr. Hunt.
Well from Ghost Protocol forward, the team would be in the periphery no more. I am of the opinion that when they were writing Ghost Protocol and thinking about Mission: Impossible in its ideal form, they realized that the show (disclaimer: I have never actually seen it, but am aware of how it worked) worked at it’s best when the entire team was needed to complete the mission. So now we had Benji, who had successfully passed his field tests to get him out from behind his cozy IT desk. We had Paula Patton’s Jane Carter who was fresh off leading her own failed mission and out for a little revenge. And finally we had Jeremy Renner’s William Brandt, an IMF analyst who may have been more than he appeared and was forced out into the field with Hunt and co. in the face of extreme circumstances. Each character had their own arc in Ghost Protocol and a lot more of an active role in the eventual success of the Mission. Carter had to seduce a billionaire playboy who had the key to accessing the nuclear satellite and then get in a shootout with the baddies to disarm the missiles. Benji was the man in the van who had to mastermind the technological aspect of the teams infiltration at the billionaires party and re construct the computer that would allow them to disarm it. Brandt had to take a plunge into a giant hot computer terminal in order to access the information they needed and eventually team up with Carter and Benji, while Hunt chased down the head baddie and his suitcase control device. They unfortunately didn’t keep Carter around for the subsequent movies, but Benji and Luther are present for both sequels and Brandt returns for Rogue Nation. It might be a cliche, but these movies really function at a higher level when there is a full team working together to complete the mission. And let us not forget the team dynamic when they are under such great pressure to save the world. Another subtle nuance of the last 3 movies is to have the team interact and hash things out when they aren’t sure if they can get the job done or how exactly to go about doing that. It really lends a humanity to these missions.
So the turning point for the Mission Impossible franchise for me is certainly Ghost Protocol. It set the new standard for what these movies could and should be. I suspect that many people felt the way I did leaving the theater from Mission: Impossible 3, that it was a solid movie and a vast improvement over 2 but, that the series was probably tired and played out. Am I ever glad they revisited it and made it what it should be. These movies are the watermark for what action movies should be in the modern age, with elaborate set pieces and real action with practical stunts. They have managed to carve out a niche for themselves among the Bond and Bourne movies as excellent action movies with real stunts, that don’t take themselves too seriously (yes the masks are a bit silly and they know it, but goddammit they are fun). They are the popcorn movie distilled into its finest form and as long as Mr. Cruise and company see fit to continue making them, I for one will be first in line at the box office.