The Mission: Impossible films have captivated me from the moment the first movie in the now six-episode series debuted in 1996.
Possessed of a larger-than-life action persona, an emotional resonance lacking in action movies on the whole, and a tight knit team that fought the bad guys in the grey netherworld of international espionage, the Tom Cruise-fronted franchise has since, with slight missteps here and there (nothing too fatal, obviously), gone from strength to gravity-defying strength.
Video essayist Michael Tucker (who you can sponsor on Patreon), who’s loved the films with a similar fervour to my own since he first saw the films as 10-year-old, goes beyond the action in his latest fascinating video, explaining through Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation that at their core, the franchise is a series of heist films.
As he explains, in heist movies the narrative momentum comes from what the protagonist wants, and how they have to go about overcoming multitudinous obstacles to get the object of their desire, with or without a team who may or may not be on their side.
He also explores how the clever plots take what is by any estimation an impossible goal and make it even worse!
Tucker’s treatise is as always brilliantly well-researched and seamlessly-articulated and you will find yourselves utterly drawn into his fascinatingly unique perspective on the films, the latest of which Mission: Impossible – Fallout is currently wowing everyone in theatres.