How the Mission: Impossible films evolved to become the perfect modern blockbuster series
The action film franchise turns 25 years old today.
Today marks 25 years since the first Mission: Impossible film hit cinemas in 1996 and it's fair to say, that in the time since, the franchise has evolved into something rather different to what it started out as. Whereas that first film did feature some memorable action set-pieces – including a climactic scene involving a train and a helicopter – it was in many ways a more restrained film than the later entries, a traditional spy thriller which largely hinged on narrative twists and turns rather than high-octane stunts.
Compare that to Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the most recent film in the series, which starts off full-throttle and doesn't take its foot off the pedal for a moment during its near two-and-a-half-hour running time, packing in bathroom brawls, cross-city motorbike chases, and an audacious finale that sees Tom Cruise clinging to a cliff with just one hand.
Both of these films are excellent pieces of pop cinema – highly entertaining blockbusters that can generate all sorts of oohs and aahs from even the most hard-hearted multiplex-goer – but if you were to watch them back-to-back, gliding over all of the intervening entries in the series, it would be almost impossible to recognise them as part of the same film franchise, save for the presence of Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames and numerous rubber masks.
This gradual evolution over the years is one of the things which sets the Mission: Impossible films apart from almost any other blockbuster series around today: its ability to offer something new – even more ambitious, even more energetic – every time ensures each new film feels fresh and exciting. Following the release of Ghost Protocol in 2011, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Cruise and his collaborators couldn't possibly top the infamous Burj Khalifa stunt, yet each time the film star has something even bolder up his sleeve.
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Everyone will have their favourite Mission: Impossible film (you can check out our own list of all the Mission: Impossible films ranked here) and there are some who argue the latter three entries are on a higher level than the preceding three. I would agree that Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is definitely where the series properly finds its feet following three interesting but rather disparate entries beforehand, but elements of each of those first three have worked their way into the DNA of what the franchise has become (the espionage plotting of the first, the ridiculous action of the second, the brilliant villain of the third). For my money, the fifth and sixth entries work so well precisely because they combine so many of the elements found in the earlier films into a coherent whole.
The series shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, with at least two more films on the way, starting with Mission: Impossible 7 – which is currently slated for a May 2022 release date. And Cruise is already promising stunts on an even higher level than those we've already seen – one key scene in the seventh film will reportedly see him drive a motorbike off a cliff, and he's said the eighth will feature a stunt even crazier than that. It also looks like the future films will continue to pay homage to those that have come before, with the seventh entry set to feature Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge – a character who hasn't been seen since the first film 25 years ago. It's this combination – constantly upping the ante but never forgetting the roots of the franchise – that has turned Mission: Impossible into the perfect modern blockbuster series.
Perhaps fittingly, given that status as the ultimate blockbuster franchise, Mission: Impossible also had a key role in helping get the film industry back up and running again after the first lockdown. Cruise detailed in a recent interview with Empire the lengths he went to get production started again, ensuring his film was one of the first big-budget productions to resume shooting – especially impressive given the scale of the project (filming took place in several countries including Italy and Norway). And it's partly because of films like Mission: Impossible that cinematic experience is so worth saving. Here's to many more years of Cruise defying the odds.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
