"The original and the best. There’s a reason that each subsequent movie has had to work so hard to up the stakes and make the missions even more impossible, because that image of Tom Cruise hanging from the ceiling of the CIA headquarters is just so iconic. The movie had just enough of the camp from the original TV series, and made all the right choices when it came to casting (Tom Cruise plays Tom Cruise! Vanessa Redgrave plays an arms dealer!), its director (the one and only Brian De Palma) and its heart-stopping action. This is the movie that gave us Tom Cruise: Action Star. You’re welcome, universe."

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION FORCE from Sean Witzke on Vimeo.

Thanks to Rado for sending along the link to the above video, which spends a hefty amount of its running time on Brian De Palma's initial film in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Made by Sean Witzke, the video mentions a couple of films in regard to De Palma's film that I hadn't considered prior: Ronald Neame's Gambit and Roman Polanski's Macbeth. Here's my transcript of Witzke's narration during the De Palma portion (parts of Witzke's narration gets inaudible or buried, so there's a piece or two I was unsure of)...

"The first Mission: Impossible movie, a spinoff from the 1960s television show, was released 19 years ago and was, though it’s almost hard to believe it now, something of an auteurist event, having been directed by Brian De Palma. Mr. Cruise was an established action star by 1996, but he also helped produce the first film, which strengthened his status as an international brand. As a star-auteur, he has always been the most important feature and effect of the series, although it’s telling that Mr. De Palma oversaw the set-piece that gave the movies their foundational image: Mr. Cruise’s operative, Ethan Hunt, hovering like a spider (or a puppet) above a luminous white floor while suspended by a very thin rope.

"As the clock tick-tocks, and Ethan struggles to keep his cool — a single drop of sweat splashed on the floor would blow the operation — the visual gloss and high-tech gobbledygook, Mr. Cruise’s graceful athleticism and Mr. De Palma’s New Hollywood suspense chops flow together, turning the scene into the emblematic Mission: Impossible showstopper. It’s the kind of pure cine-spectacle that jolts you before sweeping you up. There’s never been a scene in the series as memorable as that one, even if the exploding fish tank, the film’s other eye-popper, comes close. These sequences set a high bar both for directors who followed in Mr. De Palma’s wake and for Mr. Cruise’s physical performance, which in the later installments has largely involved progressively scarier stunts...

"Clearly Mr. McQuarrie and his star feel the need to stamp the series with seriousness, something that Mr. De Palma knew better than to do. And throughout Rogue Nation, you can sense the filmmakers comfortably, at times awkwardly, playing tug of war with the mood, which grows sinister with the excellent Sean Harris as the regulation evil genius and almost frisky with Alec Baldwin as an intelligence blowhard and Tom Hollander as a political boob. Mr. Pegg’s second-banana flair is especially crucial here because it helps show that Mr. Cruise, whose smile at times seems awfully strained these days, can still take a ribbing as well as a licking."

"For not just trafficking in the de-sexualized PG-13 rating (the very first of his career) but also having the pressure of a tie-in N64 game, U2 song on the soundtrack, and likely soda / potato chip / fast food promotion of some sorts, the easy narrative would be to say the subversive artist of Hi, Mom! took a necessary paycheck gig coddling a star’s ego to bide time until his next passion project. Yet one locates in Mission: Impossible not a tension or subservience between director and star, but rather a synchronicity. Rather than subvert Cruise’s movie-star image, De Palma’s typically intense formalism situates him in his natural habitat.

"De Palma is fully aware that Cruise is too big a star to really disappear into a role. He may don a latex face for portions of the film, but he never disguises his iconic voice. Simply put, Ethan Hunt is Tom Cruise: a perfectly poised image (some may say cipher) pirouetting around other perfect images of architecturally stunning European locales or fortress-like CIA headquarters.

"In Cruise having his own James Bond, the film had to jettison the ensemble-based narrative of the original Mission: Impossible television series, leaving only one carry-over from the original: mentor / team leader Jim Phelps, who’s killed off early, anyway. While the Phelps / Hunt dynamic is only briefly established and not really imbued with heavy psychological or emotional weight, its place in the narrative represents a key De Palma theme: the man who fails to save someone. The difference is that this typically hinges on a romantic or sexual angle: John Travolta holding the bloody body of Nancy Allen at the climactic Fourth of July celebration in Blow-Out; Michael J. Fox haunted by reminders of the young Vietnamese girl he was bullied out of protecting from rape and eventual murder in Casualties of War; or, in Body Double, milquetoast Craig Wasson spiraling into the porno underbelly of Los Angeles to avenge the brutal killing of the beautiful neighbor he peeped on.

"Hunt witnesses Phelps’ death on his watch-screen (a spy gadget reconfigured into a De Palma-esque tool of surveillance) and is then later paid a visit in an expressionistic dream sequence — one made bizarre by its canted angles, but even moreso through the exaggerated acting of Jon Voight as a ghost. Yet both instances point to a kind of unreliability affirmed by the later reveal of Phelps as a mole. The presence of a fake image ready to be reconfigured makes it most comparable to Body Double, another film that sees itself changing locations, introducing new characters, and shunning a typical dramatic coherence for the modern cinema of attractions. Who can forget the narrative grinding to a halt for a Frankie Goes to Hollywood music video?

"The difference being that whereas Body Double is a film about Hollywood, Mission: Impossible simply is Hollywood. Although they both take place within a liquid-like world and adhere to a dream logic, the megastar can easily navigate it while the not-quite-in-on-the-joke Craig Wasson gets hopelessly lost. While De Palma still manages to undercut Body Double’s snark with a somewhat melancholic tone, Mission: Impossible is free of anything resembling excess drama. The film may set itself up as something of a revenge picture — Hunt wants to clear his name, and both he and Phelps’ wife also have the intention of getting even with those responsible for the death — but he also remains the life of the party throughout (and in many instances at the expense of the hapless Jean Reno). It’s refreshing, especially compared to how J.J. Abrams’ mostly decent third installment stumbled in the literalness of its romantic subplot, something a melodramatic maximalist like John Woo could at least pull off through sheer force in his sequel.

"The film certainly hasn’t been considered an example of streamlined storytelling, its impenetrable plot becoming the stuff of notoriety. (For one of many examples see a joke made at its expense in a Billy Crystal-digitally-added-into-Jerry Maguire Oscar spoof.) Yet, if to again use De Palma’s film as a cudgel with which to whack contemporary blockbusters, the film feels liberated of the exposition and origin stories that clog up so many franchise affairs. The audience confusion arose from the fact that the film doesn’t hesitate to have every plot line collapse and swallow each other whole. It gives into a pure pop filmmaking desire for where the director wants to stick the camera and how the star will look best in it.

"From the cold open, throwing us in the middle of a mission, we get a sense of the professionals to which this is all old hat (masks are just part of the job, etc.), as well as the film’s most important motion, in that it doesn’t conclude with an action beat (like the Bond openings), but rather the disassembling of a film set. Besides just the 'film about filmmaking' analogy, what Mission: Impossible finds just as (if not more) important than a stunt is the plasticity of a situation and its location."

Matt Perri, The Workprint
"The movie is very stylish. Having Brian De Palma at the helm does that to a film. Seriously, whether you want it or not, you’re getting style. If you were a family member and you handed the camcorder to your cousin, Brian De Palma, the part where you exchange vows with your S.O. would be really intense. But his style works. The claustrophobic camera work and angular shots add a nice dimension to the paranoid mood of the film and Danny Elfman’s score is very much old school, brilliantly mimicking the tackiness of a 60’s spy show with heavy militaristic drums and horns — and the occasional bongo drum to smooth it all out because spies are hip, baby."

Russ Fischer, /Film, The Best ‘Mission: Impossible’ Action Scenes
"Brian De Palma‘s first Mission: Impossible film wasn’t packed with action setpieces — there are only three, really, but those three are all top-tier action filmmaking, and one of those three defined the series for years to come. In the two decades since, the series has been tackled by a variety of directors — John Woo, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and now Christopher McQuarrie — each of whom with a slightly different balance of action and espionage."

Joe Walsh, Cine Vue
"The opening scene with a 53-year-old Cruise clinging to the side of a military plane as it takes off (whilst managing to say his lines) is a sight to behold. McQuarrie and his team have cherry-picked the most enjoyable elements of the previous four instalments and attempted to generate a hybrid Mission: Impossible film. We have a cat and mouse chase through London echoing De Palma's street scenes in Prague and a motorcycle chase through Morocco, near mirroring John Woo's Mission: Impossible II (2000)."

Scott "Movie" Mantz, Access Hollywood
"The fact that Rogue Nation triumphs as an action film with a tightly-plotted screenplay should not come as a surprise, since it was written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for writing 1995's The Usual Suspects and has been on something of a roll with Cruise ever since he co-wrote 2008's under-seen suspense thriller Valkyrie. McQuarrie also co-wrote last year's flat-out brilliant sci-fi epic Edge of Tomorrow, and he wrote and directed 2012's underrated Jack Reacher. (He also did an uncredited script polish on the aforementioned Ghost Protocol.)

"But the key to the success of Rogue Nation is that it moves the Mission: Impossible series forward while also looking back on the staples that made it so great in the first place. The highly publicized stunt with Cruise hanging from the side of an airborne cargo jet is an envelope-pushing nod to his hair-raising climb outside the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol. There's also a gripping underwater break-in scene that brings to mind the dangling heist scene that Brian De Palma directed in the first installment, and that's followed by an exhilarating motorcycle chase that harkens back to what many regard as the best scene from director John Woo's Mission: Impossible II."

When the trailer for the new Mission: Impossible film landed last month, it seemed all anybody could talk about was the stunt of Tom Cruise hanging off an airplane. And with good reason — ever since the first Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise films have featured more and more daring stunts, often performed by the actor himself. Impressive stuff, to be sure. But what do real stuntmen think of Tom Cruise’s stunts? To get a professional’s opinion, we turned to Randy Butcher, a veteran Canadian stuntman, stunt coordinator, and director who is currently the stunt coordinator for Orphan Black and has worked on a variety of films, including X-Men, Dawn of the Dead, K-19: The Widowmaker, and countless others. He took a look at some of Cruise’s best-known and most impressive stunts, and offered his take on how they might have been done — and whether that really is Tom Cruise doing those stunts.

1. Mission: Impossible (1996): Breaking into Langley, suspended on a wire.

Butcher: This is the wire gag that everybody copied forever. I’ve personally copied it myself. That’s Tom, hands down. It’s a pretty contrived scene, but I was on the edge of my seat. He’s in a harness, and they’re using some Spectra Rope, which is better than cable. Whether it’s 30 or 40 feet, Tom is absolutely in that harness, using his own stomach muscles and his own balance to maintain that position and that shot. They don’t cut away from it at all.

The fact that we can always see that it’s Tom really helps make the scene. There’s a profile shot of him over the computer, and you can actually sense his struggle to maintain that balance, which really adds to it. I know it’s not cool to like Tom Cruise anymore, but I’m a fan of his. I think he’s an underrated actor. His physical mannerisms complement what’s happening inside his mind. I like watching him act.

2. Mission: Impossible (1996): Fleeing as a giant fish tank explodes behind him.

Butcher: I’ve done stuff similar to this. They have a build, they fill it with water, and the special-effects team goes through a great deal of trouble to place detonation devices on that glass. If memory serves, in the scene, Tom Cruise sticks some kind of explosive on the glass. And there’s a guy standing in front of it. And that guy is jerked backwards on a cable, which is taken out in post, of course. If you have the opportunity to watch this scene frame by frame, watch the top of the glass before the guy gets jerked through. As he rises into the air, they cut to the opposite side of the glass that he’s going to come through. And if you look closely, you will see that at the top of the glass is a little hole that breaks first — that’s where the cable is going through. They’ve probably cut a hole in the glass, fed the cable through it to his harness, then, on action, he’s jerked backwards, probably from an air ratchet. And as he blows through, special effects create that spider effect that completely shatters the tempered glass.

And once he’s come blasting through, he’s opened up this huge, empty space in front of this tank for Tom Cruise to come through. And if you watch, you’ll see that Tom is at first behind a pillar. So he was out of harm’s way when they jerked the guy through. Once the glass is blown through, he comes out from behind that pillar and runs through the scene, towards [the] camera. I would have personally no issue at all putting an actor in that spot. I have no doubt that that’s Tom Cruise. (I’m pretty sure that that’s not live fish in there, though.) His only danger is that when this glass does blow, some of the broken glass will be carried along by the water, but not at any speed that would turn it into a projectile and potentially harm Tom. Plus, the lens has compressed the distance so much that he could be quite far away and you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

On the TV series Orphan Black, I just put an actor through a window. I had a stunt double there, and the actor and I had a chat. He was into doing it, but the producers weren’t because it was the first shot of the day and we had to shoot in sequence because of the way this apartment was going to be destroyed. But I designed how to do it so this guy wouldn’t be harmed. I needed him to go through, but I didn’t need to drag him back — that’s where the danger would have been. And he did it. So we had his face coming through the glass, and not the back of the stunt guy’s head. And I can’t begin to tell you what a big difference that makes, to be able to see the actor’s face in a situation like that.

Mendelson continues, "Yes, I am aware that GoldenEye was actually the 18th 007 adventure. But for all intents-and-purposes, Pierce Brosnan’s entry into the franchise, which came six years after the box office failure of License to Kill left the franchise’s long term future in doubt, was something of a soft reboot back before Hollywood felt the need to retell the origin story every friggin time. Anyway, the initial teaser trailer announced that James Bond was back in movie theaters during the summer of 1995 (attached to Species) showed off Pierce Brosnan in a tuxedo, and then dove headfirst into a 50-second montage of nonstop action and excitement, offering nary a hint of voiceover, plot, or even much in the way of narrative coherence. It was arguably the first trailer to move so quickly that you could barely digest the images.

"That’s not a criticism, but it was edited within an inch of its life and made the conventional action movie trailer, full of voiceover exposition, explicit plot points, and long take action sequences, feel downright slug-like by comparison. The James Bond franchise had one shot to reclaim its hold on the popular zeitgeist and make a case for its continued relevance in a world with Die Hard and Batman, and it wasn’t going to take any chances by coming up for air. And it was perhaps the most action-packed and relentlessly breathless action movie trailer you had ever seen. The next prime example of this somewhat new form of trailer construction came not with the second GoldenEye trailer (which was a conventional 1990′s sell with voice over and copious plot reveals), but rather the initial two teasers for Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible.

"What did audiences need to know about the Paramount release, which at the time was pegged to be the biggest grossing film of the summer (it sounds crazy now, but ID4 was not considered a sure thing even as late as June of 1996) other than that it was an adaptation of the popular ensemble spy action show and that it starred Tom Cruise? Nothing, which is what Paramount’s marketing department gave them outside of those two facts. The initial Mission: Impossible teaser dropped in late 1995 and didn’t even bother with a single line of dialogue, voice over or otherwise. They merely gave us 55 seconds of Tom Cruise and friends engaged in non-stop action set to Lalo Schifrin’s classic theme song culminating in that climactic 'Cruise flies off an exploding helicopter onto a train' bit that was one of the coolest things you had ever seen back then. That final shot of Cruise leaping from the exploding helicopter was the best money shot in a trailer I had ever seen. But upon seeing the film, my heart sank as I realized that golden money shot was actually the climactic death of the primary villain.

"So yes, I’ve been complaining about studios giving away the action finales of their films in the trailers for at least twenty years.

"The next trailer offered little-to-no plot beyond the introductory 'this is your mission' set-up and merely cryptic lines ('a simple game…') to power along what was basically 80 seconds of context-free action and just enough quotable dialogue to allow us to catch a moment’s breath. Ironically, if I may digress for a bit, it now exists as a classic example of both misdirection and spoiler-by-insinuation. If you actually pay attention to the trailer, you’ll see pretty much every major action moment in the film, which in turn makes the film appear to be far more action-drenched than it actually is. It falsely sets up Emmanuelle Béart as a damsel-in-distress spoiling not every action moment in the film but also quite a bit of the narrative. But I digress, the initial teasers for GoldenEye and Mission: Impossible were designed to be seen a few times in a theater, but they were also tailor made for the Internet, which was in its mainstream infancy."