Commentary: The ‘Mission Impossible’ Series Defines Hollywood-Style Action
by Frank Martin
It’s no surprise that action in Hollywood films can take many different forms. There’s action with huge explosions and unbelievable feats of strength that no average human could endure. Then there is action that is very grounded and gritty, where the characters have very real world consequences and injuries from the dangerous stunts they attempt. Sometimes films lean in one direction or the other. Other times, they try to straddle a line between the two. The Mission Impossible franchise and Tom Cruise‘s involvement in it is a great example of something to look at when analyzing Hollywood action.
After many installments, franchise tend to get crazier and crazier with its action and stunts. The M:I brand hasn’t quite risen to Fast and The Furious levels of absurdity yet, but it’s important to remember that its first film featured a helicopter chasing a train through a tunnel. So to see Cruise’s Ethan Hunt leap off the side of a building to enter an open window should be expected to some extent. The most recent film, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, continues this trend as Hunt once again leaps off a motorcycle in order to catch a moving train. After the train inevitably falls off of a cliff, Cruise and co-star Haley Atwell have to jump from train car to train car before they all plummet down into the valley.
One of the reasons Cruise loved the franchise so much is it indulges his craziness in terms of action and stunts. Because of this, it will be very hard for him to try to ground this action fantasy into something a little bit more plausible and realistic. It’s interesting to contrast it against a movie like the first Taken film with Liam Neeson. That film is completely grounded in its action. He even gets in a car chase and his vehicle is completely destroyed at the end simply by driving over dirt mounds. The fight scenes are close and gritty, and Neeson’s character faces real injury from threats. One style of action is not better than the other, but it’s important to note the distinction.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is now streaming on Paramount+.