Pynchon

1. Only one of the characters in the TV series makes it into the movie. (IMF team leader Jim Phelps. No Rollin' Hand, no Cinnamon Carter, no Barney Collier, no Willy Lupus. There were others from the later series that they could have used as well. Paris, Dana Lambert, etc.)
2. They turn Jim Phelps into a fucking traitor. (Bollocks! Jim Phelps was the TV's coolest spymaster and he would never in a million years have turned into a traitor.)
3. Jim Phelps is married? And his missus is part of the team? (WTF?)
4. They kill off the entire team (bar the missus, who is also a traitor) in the first 20 minutes and turn it into Tom-Cruise-Lone-Super-Spy-With-Hired-Hands. (Double Bollocks! The series was always about the team and (mostly) they all had equal screen time.)
5. No cameos from the original cast. (Outrageous! Martin Landau and Peter Graves are not still working actors? Barbara Bain is on record as saying that if she had been asked she would have done a cameo.)
6. It's boring. (The series was never boring.)
7. It's slow. (The series was never slow.)
8. It's style over substance. (The series had those intricate and ingenious clockwork plots. What more substance do you need?)
9. Foremost it is a star vehicle for Tom Cruise to show how good he is and as such is pointless.
10. And don't get me started on "Mission: Impossible II". Empty, slow, dull, boring, a wasted Anthony Hopkins, shit, shit, shit, shit. (Did you know that co-stars Dougray Scott and Thandie Newton both lost out on major roles because of that abomination over running as Cruise and Director John Woo fought for creative control? Dougray Scott was cast as Wolverine in "X-Men" and Thandie Newton as Alex Munday in "Charlie's Angels" and both had to pull out because of reshoots. I would have been well pissed off myself.)
11. Bollocks. Fuck. Shit. Cunt (and other incoherent sounds of rage).

Ah... I feel better now. I did like the bit with Cruise breaking into the vault. Very good.

I was going to try to write a proper analysis, but obviously it has not turned out that way. I really loved the original "Mission: Impossible" TV series and my impression after coming out of the cinema was that they had pissed all over it. It was just so totally wrong. I have no problem with updating the format. Give it explosions and car chases and globe trotting and character development, but be true to what it was about ,which was the caper, the heist, the con and the team. Always the team.

Bad, bad film. I am getting angry again... My shirt is splitting and my skin is turning green.

You might ask if I intend to see "Mission: Impossible III"? Sure I do. J. J. Abrams of "Lost" and "Alias" fame is in the Director's and co-writer's chair, and if there is a man who knows his way around a modern spy vehicle, especially after some of the top notch episodes of "Alias", it is he.

# posted by Pynchon @ 7:56 pm