Trying to make sense of Mission: Impossible, Hollywood’s most perplexing spy franchise
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to untangle the complex twists, turns, and backstories of the Tom Cruise films and the Peter Graves series
Film Features Mission: Impossible
WTF is the IMF? The answer to that question, like many aspects of the long-running Mission: Impossible franchise itself, can be convoluted, elusive, frustrating, and rewarding, in equal measures. A secretive and enigmatic espionage agency, the Impossible Mission Force has served as the anchor for the Mission: Impossible TV series in the 1960s, its two-season 1980s-era follow-up and, of course, the seven and counting feature films led by Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.
Unlike more clearly defined pop mythologies, continuity within both franchises and within the individual films themselves can be as impenetrable as the IMF itself. So just in time for Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, The A.V. Club chooses to accept the mission to decipher at least a portion of what the IMF is. Cue the Lalo Schifrin music and light the match…
TV viewers accept their mission
Producer Bruce Gellar launched the original Mission: Impossible TV series in 1966, marrying the then-red-hot spy trend sparked by the James Bond movies series with the stylish, clockwork procedural aspects of heist thrillers like The Asphalt Jungle and Topkapi. Gellar took a minimalist approach when defining both the IMF and its characters: dialogue, backstory, and the agents’ inner and off-duty lives were given minimal attention. What mattered was the urgent, tense, step-by-step nature of the action, the unforeseen complications the agents encountered, and the innovative solutions they arrived at on the fly.
Among the precious few facts hinted at about the IMF’s origins was that it was founded by Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) during his service in the U.S. Army’s intelligence division at some point during World War II and/or the Korean War. During his service, Briggs, a lieutenant colonel possessing a Ph.D. in analytical psychology, established a team of covert operatives that took on complicated missions for the war effort. After some period of dormancy, Briggs was tasked with reviving the organization as the IMF to help the government achieve its Cold War containment strategies and broadening its parameters to take on corrupt regimes, political skullduggery, organized crime, Nazi revivals, and more.
In its postwar incarnation, the IMF was so faceless and off-the-books that if any mission went awry and any agents were captured or killed, they and their actions could be disavowed by its director. The deep-pocketed geopolitical force that assembled the IMF at the series’ outset was always strongly implied to be the United States; the missions—which were largely international, although increasingly domestic as the series developed—were deemed so dangerous and politically volatile that agents were given the option of refusing the assignment. That the prerecorded message of outreach self-destructed a few moments after being played reinforced how sensitive and damaging the information conveyed might be if intercepted by the wrong hands.
The IMF takes spycraft to high-tech heights
The franchise’s title efficiently summed up just how thorny IMF assignments were: seemingly impossible yet, with the right combination of cunning, tech tools, and carefully crafted big cons, nevertheless doable. To accomplish these, the IMF typically relied on elaborate schemes akin to large-scale confidence games designed to lure in their unsuspecting nemeses and trick them into providing the means of their undoing. As a result, most IMF agents are adept at assuming fake cover identities, including regularly resorting to extravagant makeup and prosthetics.
Intriguingly, as the gadgetry and hardware of other film and TV spy series grew more fanciful and grandiose, the IMF largely stuck to an arsenal of technology that felt only a step or two away from what would be possible in the real world.
Mission leaders like Briggs and, later, Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) were largely given carte blanche in their choices of agents, methodologies, and equipment when it came to tackling each assignment, drawing from various specialists with the skill sets necessary to achieve the objective. The agents varied, and could be as enigmatic as the IMF itself, like Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), a theater arts master of both magician-style misdirection and elaborate disguise, or as high-profile as supermodel Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), whose fame and jet-setting lifestyle offered her easy entry into sophisticated environs.
Missions also relied on high-tech wizards like Barney Carter (Greg Morris) who created the immersive environments and hands-on fabrications necessary to make IMF ruses seem real, and low-profile operatives like Willy Armitage (Peter Lupus), whose unusual strength and low-key demeanor allowed him to perform key tasks while drawing scant attention. Such regular players are supplemented by additional agents who rotate in and out of missions, and one-off “guest” agents recruited for specific abilities necessary for each particular mission.
When friends are foes, and vice versa
The TV series’ mix of regulars and revolving-door agents would be carried over into the Ethan Hunt era. It should be noted that it’s unclear if the film franchise is set in the same continuity as the TV franchise, with two different Jim Phelps at the core of the confusion: Peter Graves’ noble incarnation of Phelps was the stalwart for the bulk of the TV runs, while Jon Voight’s Phelps in the 1996 franchise-launcher is a duplicitous, self-serving betrayer. It’s never been clarified if the two Phelpses are one and the same, perhaps father and son, or two different agents operating under the Jim Phelps cover identity. In the world of the IMF and Hollywood melodrama, any of these options are plausible.
As Cruise’s Hunt steps into the role of IMF leader, once again a rotating cast of agents is assembled for each outing on a mission-by-mission basis. The most durable regulars are Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), the once-disavowed computer specialist, and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), the technician and field agent with a facility for crafting the IMF’s increasingly realistic disguises. The force also occasionally recruits, even strong-arms, temporary agents, like the glamorous master thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton), the rogue assassin Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), and the prestigious pickpocket known as Grace (Hayley Atwell) into service.
While it still dabbles in some smaller-scale operations, Hunt’s IMF typically takes on missions with world-altering—even potentially world-destroying—stakes, often in the realm of nuclear- and bio- and cyber-terrorism. If there are consistent flaws in Hunt’s IMF, they are a lack of consistent leadership (the role of director seems to be ever handed-off to new and sometimes less capable hands), the increasing encroachment of political and bureaucratic interference in its operations, and a disturbing tendency to be infiltrated by treacherous forces willing to betray the IMF in pursuit of their own agendas. As more and more entities become aware of the IMF’s existence, the more impossible its missions become (which, of course, is part of the on-screen fun).
Lastly, there’s one intriguing thread from both the TV series and the films that is tantalizingly ripe to be tugged at: the longstanding insinuation that many, if not all, of the regular agents became involved with the IMF as a result of a criminal past of one sort or another, perhaps seeking absolution or redemption for past sins. The notion that in the spirit of serving their better angels, Ethan Hunt and his cohorts actually do choose to accept these impossible missions makes their exploits all the more heroic. As more and more entities become aware of the once-shadowy IMF’s existence and its agents’ complicated histories appear poised to come back to haunt them, the more impossible its missions become. Which is why, despite the impossible task of knowing everything there is to know about the IMF, audiences keep coming back decade after decade.
64 Comments
It’s really not that difficult.
I was going to make a crack about the white guy in the back being a dead ringer for Norberg in Police Squad! (though not for Nordberg in the Naked Gun movies, of course) but I looked it up and sure enough, it’s the same guy, Peter Lupus. Dude was 50 in Police Squad! and looked fantastic.
For the first time ever, it actually was Lupus.
Well, the magician had lupus as well, if I recall.
I’m old enough to remember religiously watching the original TV show when it aired. I particularly remember the lovable Wally Cox as the tech guy in the very first episode. IIRC, something happened to him in the episode that allowed the mission to complete successfully but left him unable to continue on missions.
I read the other day that Steven Hill quit (slash was asked to leave) Mission Impossible after re-connecting with his Jewish roots (e.g. insisting on not working on the Sabbath, etc) before quitting acting for ten years.And then he turned up as Adam Schiff for the first ten years of Law and Order! Looking at side-by-sides of the square-jawed guy from MI and the bedraggled DA from Law and Order is one of those really cool (I think) times when you can see how these two very different people are really the same person separated by years.I have the same experience looking at side-by-side pics of old and young Sean Connery.
Holy cow, that square jawed guy was Stephen Hill?! When I read that he was in MI, I was wondering why they didn’t include any pictures of him.
No, you’re right, he’s not in any of the pics here. But if you Google it you can see the old-man-to-be in the young man’s face.Boston Legal did a really excellent episode where Shatner is flashing back a case when he was young (a 50s TV movie he did that ABC had the rights to.) I kind of wonder why this type of thing doesn’t happen more, because it’s realllly effective when it’s done right (especially vs digital de-aging.) Would have dug a few frames of young strapping Schiff!
Yes, I did look him up, I couldn’t believe it was the same guy.
There was an episode of Murder, She Wrote that featured a trio of guest stars including Harry Morgan that used footage from a ‘50s movie that starred the three. I can’t remember if the episode was framed as a sequel to the movie, or just used the footage and was unrelated story-wise.
Oh this sounds neat! I’ll have to check that out.
One of the classic examples of that is Stephen Soderbergh’s The Limey, which uses footage from Ken Loach’s Poor Cow for flashbacks filling in Wilson’s (Terrance Stamp’s) backstory.
Kind of like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang using old L.A. Law footage of Corbin Bernsen.
It’s a shame Thandiwe Newton’s Nyah Nordoff-Hall was essentially done away with after her one starring appearance in MI:2 where she very much proved to be Ethan Hunt’s equal when it came to ingenuity, craftiness, and willingness to just embrace crazy ‘one-in-a-million shot’ plans. The movie made such a big deal of establishing a deep romance between the two, but then in MI:3 Hall is nowhere to be seen, zero explanation for her absence is provided, and Hunt’s already engaged to a new woman in his life.It’s also sadly not that surprising that Hall got such treatment since this was at the tail end of the “Bond Girl” era where female characters were often unceremoniously disposed of off-screen so the male lead could have a fresh new love interest in the next movie (see also: Heather Graham’s character from Austin Powers 2 being gone in AP3). Some sequels even ghoulishly “poked fun” at this trope while still fully indulging in it (Deuce Bigelo, European Gigolo, Zoolander 2, etc.).
I appreciated that Hunt had to recruit her as a spy, which is closer to real-world operations than plots where the protagonist pretends to be someone else and goes behind enemy lines. He was her handler and there were some actual “stakes” about what happens if she gets caught (every knows Hunt is making it out of these things alive). That she proved to be Hunt’s equal and had a skill set that Luther, Billy and Ethan could *not* provide was compelling and worked well with the team. In many cases it’s “one person is the hacker, the other person does everything else”. Newton’s character broke that mold a bit, which was cool, even if they sort of turned her into a damsel in distress towards the end.I am a bit of an MI2 apologist I guess. It was the worst MI2 and had a lot of flaws, but there were some good ideas in there.
I’ve been watching all of these this weekend in preparation for MIDRPO this week, and I gotta say, I don’t remember why we hate #2 so much. The story is decent, the actors are engaging. I feel like it’s the cinematography. It has a charlie’s angels full throttle vibe to it.
I suspect overhype. When a lot of us heard John Woo was attached to it, we were hoping for the elaborate gunfight choreography we associate with HK, like ABT or Hard-Boiled. The thing is, all that action was R-rated and M:I had already locked itself in as a PG-13 franchise. Getting Limp Bizkit to perform the theme song seemed very commercial at the time, too.
The metaphor I liked using was that Woo loved using flocks of doves flying around; M:I-2 had a single CGI dove and a who lot of pigeons.That said, M:I-2 gave us a lot to love: the Ben Stiller MTV Movie Awards parody (which I just realized had the precursor to the “Why is Gamora?” joke; linked below), my college roommates and me bitching about Metallica banning their single on Napster, and a reasonably fun PG-13 movie. It is, however, the weakest of the franchise, though more memorable to me than M:I-3 (which gave me one of my favorite gags in the franchise with the Polaroid-on-the-security-camera trick).
Because it was essentially a corny John Woo action flick trying to copy James Bond starring Tom Cruise. It had zero to do with Mission Impossible. Having Limp Bizkit do the opening song did not age well or help it either.
That fuckin’ soundtrack was everywhere when I was in Year 9. Takes me back, man. I think it’s biggest cultural impact, however, was that a leak of “I Disappear” was what got Metallica all lawyered up against Napster. Also, I’m depressed Taylor Hawkins didn’t sing more:
It also has a plot ripped straight from Notorious (acknowledged directly by having the race course scene), one of the most exquisite spy movies ever made
I liked it for the John Woo-ness.
I also sort of prefer it to MI3, just because it is so loopy. I always loved John Woo but you don’t bring him in if you want a nuanced film.MI3 is great in some ways – the cast is terrific, the bad guy, the set piece at the Vatican – and it’s a springboard for 4,5,6 and presumably the new ones. But it also feels very 2006 and it’s ridiculously teal.
Hey, Austin Powers 2 poked fun at the trope in the first place:
I watched MI:2 the other day and was surprised at how frankly they treated her character. Female characters in action movies are so commonly just love interests and disposable (like you said, Bond girls). MI:2 makes it very clear that the bad guy wants her for sex and that the IMF is using her as bait in that way. But they also showed her as being more than capable. I guess I took it as an indictment of the former, which was refreshing.Also, I read that they didn’t write her out. She was going to be part of the IMF, but she decided not to return for third movie so they went another direction.
This is kind of a weird article because the Mission Impossible franchise has so deliberately avoided any world building or mythology around the IMF agency. It’s an agency, they send people on impossible missions using self-destructive recordings, and their agents have goofy custom gadgets perfectly tailored for each mission. They’ve basically never tried to explain it any more than that across 6 (now 7) movies, so it’s hard to get lost.
This is what’s so…interesting(?) about the new movie. M:I – IMF is it’s own thing, maybe a splinter off the CIA?M:I 2 – I don’t rememberM:I 3 – A centralized, seemingly standalone agency, with a bossM:I 4 – A seemingly loosely centralized, perhaps standalone agency, with a SecretaryM:I 5 – A loosely organized, perhaps standalone department, with a Secretary vacancyM:I 6 – A standalone division with a new Secretary, kind of tucked under the CIA (“It was a lateral move, some say a step down…”)[SPOILERS]M:I 7 – A sort of self-organizing set of quasi-agents, who seemingly report to no one, that not even the Director of National Intelligence knows about (although other branch heads do? “We just, uh . . . let them know.”). Ironically, this might be the closest thing to the original series.
This article unsurprisingly left out a whole lot of actual backstory behind it.It really was simple enough. Paramount wanted to jump on the bandwagon of making 60/70s shows into movie franchises which was the rage at the time and picked Tom Cruise to produce and headline it. Tom Cruise predictably wanted to and made it an action-packed extravaganza all about himself that made Jim Phelps the bad guy and kills off the entire IMF team which enraged the cast and fans of the original TV series who boycotted it in response. Graves and Landau turned down appearing in it. Cruise and Paula Wagner responded, with a “who cares, screw em” and proceeded to do it his way, and so here we are 27 years later, a movie franchise that has little to do with the original TV show other than calling it the “IMF.”
Yeah, the treatment of Phelps really soured the movie for me. Particularly since they made him a betrayer for just money, which was ridiculous. If Phelps wanted $10M, he could steal it every day of the week and twice on Sundays, and no one would ever know.
Someone should count up how much money Phelps and team stole over the course of the series. I think they once stole $10 million on one episode.
$10M 1960s dollars to boot!
Actually, offhand I can think of twice when they stole at least that much – a pool table full of platinum and a room full of gold.
I’m amazed at how many of my younger friends were unaware the M:I ever was a TV show (until I mentioned it – I’m a BIG fan)
The movies (which I admit I’ve never seen because, duh, I love Jim Phelps) AFAIK are all about action, Action, ACTION! While the TV show is all about wits. You don’t have to kill someone on the ‘other side’ if you can humiliate them instead. It’s a largely nonviolent show, with the ‘good guys’ almost never involved in gunplay or fistfights.
BTW, if you’re a fan of the show at all, ‘The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier’ is an indispensable resource.
The movies are probably a bit more nuanced than you think, especially 1,4,5 & 6. Hunt’s team definitely plan to be in-out undetected where possible, and though the films have violence and shootouts they happen only when the bad guys attack first. Except in the John Woo one which has a lot of gunfights.Generally the characters who are quick to violence are the bad guys and the excellent last film, Fallout, has the team taking great pains in order to avoid unneccessary violence.
Thanks, I’m fine!
The thing is though is that all of the movies are all 100% about Ethan Hunt and what he does, and that there is an I in team and in his world and universe which is not how the TV shows were at all. There are episodes in the show that doesn’t have a shot fired in anger at all and in general, doesn’t revolve around the adventures of one single main character. No one gets killed or disavowed. The show at its core was a teamwork and heist show which the first movies kind of followed, but they’ve seemed to have abandoned that formula lately and made it more like Bond/Fast and the Furious for the latest ones.
Cruise is the movie star and Hunt is the team leader, so he’s in the spotlight the most – that’s fair comment – but generally, I don’t think you’re correct. MI2 and 3 are the ones that most lean into Ethan as solo hero, but 1, 4, 5 and 6 all have their climactic victories won by teams, working in concert. Every film in the series has multiple stings or heists and the best scenes – the Burj Khalifa in 4, the opera in 5, the convoy heist in 6 – all have multiple moving pieces being run by different team members.I really loved the MI tv series but I also think it wouldn’t work as a big budget movie series. The MI films are a hybrid between the ethos of the show and the spectacle of the big screen, which is why they work so well.
While there are heist/infiltration scenes and bits of teamwork in the movies, the whole point and plot of the all the movies are centered around the one, James Bond-esque, super agent/man, Ethan Hunt, trying to get the macguffin from falling into the wrong hands and saving the world, shooting and blowing everything up in the process and falling in love in women. That is absolutely not how the show worked at all. Not even close enough to call it a hybrid. Even the heist/infiltration and teamwork scenes you mention are all centered around getting Ethan in and out alone to get the macguffin or to go after the villain. It’s a Tom Cruise movie and production after all and again, his whole MO is that there is “I” in team and that’s the point. If anything, it’s more in common with Bond movies now than the show.
The M:I TV series has already shown that it can work out great as a big budget movie series, but it’s called something else: Ocean’s 11. Those ones are actually more within the spirit and accurate of the TV show as far the whole movie and plot centered on an intricate heist and infiltration by a team of smart and eclectic individuals without things blowing up or fights with a mustache twirling villain and henchmen. I can totally see Paramount trying this approach when Cruise inevitability retires and they inevitably reboot franchise to start again.
Not a single person, even Cruise himself, thinks that the current film franchise has anything to do with the original show anymore other than the name and the idea of the IMF, and that’s fine and the point. They’re great fun and action movies, but don’t compare it to the actual Mission Impossible show.
“the whole point and plot of the all the movies are centered around the one, James Bond-esque, super agent/man, Ethan Hunt, trying to get the macguffin from falling into the wrong hands and saving the world, shooting and blowing everything up in the process and falling in love in women.”I believe that’s what you think the films are, but that doesn’t make it so. The macguffin thing is right. But he doesn’t go around shooting and blowing things up, and he doesn’t fall in love with women. He’s a flirt, but the one time it gets sexual (in MI2, the least typical in the series) it’s because he’s ordered to seduce her. The next time we see him in MI3 he’s married, and it’s only been flirting since then. It’s a very chaste series.
“But he doesn’t go around shooting and blowing things up”Here is a clip of him literally doing that:Yes I get it, you’re one of those big huge fans of the movie series, that you don’t want to accept criticism of it, and also why this discussion is going nowhere. Especially when you don’t want to accept the fact that none of this ever happened on the original TV show which is the point here. It is more of an action packed Bond copy now, and it’s fine. But don’t compare it to the TV show, because it isn’t.
It is different to the tv show, I’ve said as much. And I love the TV show. But they are comparable and I am happy to compare them, so it’s weird to tell me not to given that’s the basis of this conversation. And while I am a big fan of the films, they aren’t perfect and there’s loads of criticism to level at the films. I just don’t think “current tentpole action movie is a bit different from a 60s procedural TV show” is a very solid or interesting critique.I’ve watched the newest MI film and while I overall liked it, my key disappointment with it is a lack of complex “missions” – it’s the first time there hasn’t been a coordinated heist or scam. Even MI2 and 3 have them. I do think it’s a core feature and losing it hurts the movie.
It’s even weirder that you have spent a whole week missing the point of an article and conversation thread. The whole point and topic of this article is how they, specifically Tom Cruise, turned a 60s-era procedural heist/spy show into a blockbuster action movie franchise and Bond copy, and how they’re very different from each other, as I opened up this thread and conversation with how they deliberately made the movies verydifferent than the show which pissed off the cast and fans of the original show. Others here on the AV Club agreed.
If you don’t think it’s a solid or interesting critique, then you’re welcome to stop replying and commenting at any time. Like I had mentioned before, it seems pointless having this kind of discussion with a movie fan like you who just doesn’t seem to want to genuinely acknowledge and accept the differences and have a good faith conversation about it.
I do want to have a good faith conversation about it. I’m not a “tv show bad, movie good” person. I grew up watching Mission: Impossible reruns at teatime in the UK in the 80s. I’ve said repeatedly that they are different. But they aren’t unrecognisably different and your characterisation of the films as having jettisoned all the hallmarks of the show in favour of a Bond clone just isn’t true and makes me feel like you haven’t watched the films – or if you have, you haven’t watched Bond. They’re in the same genre, they always were back to the 60s, but Hunt doesn’t behave like Bond at all. Is he more like Bond than the TV series version of Phelps? Yes. Is he more like Bond than Dan Briggs? Probably not.The point of the article is to define and compare some of the characteristics of Mission: Impossible in it’s two main phases – so again, why tell me not to compare them? You don’t have to answer that. I’m not trying to make you agree with me. And I’ll take my leave of this thread, but not before assuring you I’ll be relaxing this week with both “The Mind of Stefan Miklos” and “Rogue Nation”.
Except that this isn’t and never was a “tv show bad, movie good” or vice versa discussion and article in the first place. The fact that you couldn’t discern that on top of your “current tentpole action movie is a bit different from a 60s procedural TV show” is a very solid or interesting critique.” comment shows that you weren’t here in good faith in the first place, and that you should’ve left this thread a week ago instead of dragging it out to make no discernible point than that you really like the films over the original TV show so much that you refuse to tell the obvious differences that even Tom Cruise admits to be the case.
It’s great how in some of the movies the just skip the heist and move on. And the audience doesn’t feel ripped off, but in on the joke. And the movies are still about teamwork.
I share your feelings about the show, but if you just skip the first movie and divorce it from the original, they’re fun action movies. I did the same thing with RDJ’s Holmes movies – once I decided they were about Action Victorian Detective and not Sherlock Holmes, they were perfectly enjoyable.Of course, there’s plenty of stuff to watch where you don’t have to do mental gymnastics, so YMMV.
I view them as completely separate entities. The movies really are (for the most part) great though, and just keep getting better. Don’t punish yourself. You can enjoy both as completely distinct things that have basically nothing to do with each other at this point. If you really want to, just skip 1 and 2.
and a reboot!
To be fair, the final episodes of MI original series ran 50 years ago. If only The Beverly Hillbillies had done so well theatrically, or The Munsters, or….
I’m glad Henry Czerny is back for this one, as I think the M:I movies always benefited from great casts. I do wish some characters from previous installments would show up now and then. I think Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q and Paula Patton’s characters were fun and I would like to see them back again.
Apparently they wanted to bring back Patton and Q for the fifth movie, but they both had scheduling conflicts. Too bad.
I will never get over how the movies made Mr. Phelps a villain. Sorry, Tom.
I really hated that the big twist in the first movie was that Phelps, the one guy who couldn’t possibly be a traitor, turned out to be the bad guy. Lazy writing.
Yeah it’s a real shame the franchise never took off because they alienated fans of the original show like that. It could have run for 30+ years with 7-8 sequels if they made Phelps a good guy.
Not sure it alienated anyone. It was just lazy writing.
I’ll be honest, despite the craft behind the first, I found it dreadfully boring. In my opinion, 2 was a little silly but my second favorite after 3, which for me was the high-point of the entire series.After 3, I have a hard time remembering what happened in each one. I’m pretty sure they are generally remembered for their increasingly complex stunts (which we make fun of the Fast and Franchise franchise for…), but each feels unique and yet generic at the same time.Maybe that is the true power of the franchise.
I’m in the minority here, but I actually really enjoyed the MI-1988 series. It didn’t have a great budget, and Peter Graves will never win an Oscar for acting, but it was a mixed cast, they had some VERY good storylines, and tied it back to the original cast a few times, and even including Greg Morris’ son as Barney’s film son as the tech guru. Two good seasons and I thought it held to the spirit of espionage, spycraft, tech goodies, and a well spun plan executed.
The problem with MI is that they always focus on Ethan Hunt. I know that most people watch this to see Tom Cruise run, but until Ghost Protocol this is like a solo spy mission with Luther Stickell as Q.MI 3 had good teamwork and they decide to replace the other agents with new one except Luther on MI 4. Benji basically just the comic relief and Ilsa is just another “will they won’t they” side character. And whatever happened to Carter (Paula Patton) and Brandt (Jeremy Renner)?
Completely agree!! The teamwork aspect of the series was the entire premise upon which it was based, the various skills and how they work together. It really was quite something to enjoy and it wasn’t focused on a single character. That’s where the movies really are so inconsistent.
I watch the old show 6 days a week on metv. The movies suffer by lacking one key element – the ending where the bad guys are either killed or totally flummoxed by how they’ve been conned, while the IM crew drives away, smugly superior in how they’ve pulled off another one. Of course many elements in the old show are ridiculous on their face – e.g., they’ve learned that so-and-so is to be kidnapped/assassinated/blackmailed/coerced into some action or other in just 2 days in some Iron Curtain or other dictator-ruled country in Europe or South America, and next thing you know, they’re mounting a full-scale intelligence operation using not only the stars of the show but often a “repertory theater” cast of helpers, but all kinds of different uniforms, disguises, advanced technical equipment, forged documentation, appropriated vehicles, etc., etc. ignoring the fact that these kinds of operations take months to get everything in place, especially in view of the extensive security apparatuses in place in such countries. As for the movies, I won’t watch that freakazoid scientologist cruise.
Your mission, should
you choose to accept it, is to untangle the complex twists, turns, and
backstories of the Tom Cruise films and the Peter Graves series
The new one? Perplexing…Atwell was good
I was a fan of the 80’s series. It ended on a cliffhanger with a character falling off a bridge. Over thirty years later, it still bothers me that it was never resolved.
Nobody mentions Leonard Nimoy being part of the original show at one point!He should have been brought into the movies.
Sad to see no mention of Leonard Nimoy’s MI TV character of Paris, his first emotional role “allowed” after Star Trek was canceled. Both shows produced by Desilu, on the lot. Finally, this latest MI movie shows, “We’ll always have Paris.”