Sunday, November 23, 2008

Monthly Movie Review Column : Mission Impossible Marathon

I decided to have a movie marathon and lock myself in my apartment. After 6 days in turmoil and trigger finger bombing Bangkok, that's all I wanna do - STAY HOME.
The trilogy

The Mission Impossible franchise will kickstart my monthly movie reviews in this blog. I rented MI1 and MI2 from Video Ezy[I have MI3 DVD] and started the marathon with my 2 friends, Lay and Miguel.
Say hola Miguel
Miguel, Lay and I enjoying the movie marathon

Mission Impossible 1
Directed by Brian De Palma. This movie was made in 1996. So, what I noticed most was the equipment circa 1996. Huge CRT monitors, magnetic strip access cards and Ethan Hunt using a floppy disk to retrieve data. Funny. Anyway, the movie plot is hard to follow unless you have English subtitles. The scene where Ethan is in the vault stealing data using a floppy disk made me grip my bedsheets.

Mission Impossible 2
The opening rock climbing scene is one of the most spectacular scene ever. It shows Ethan perform solo climbing without the aid of ropes and caribiners. One word to describe "COOL". Since it's directed by John Woo, it's action packed with some stylo slomo freeze frame thrown into it. Not to mention a couple of doves to symbolize purity or whatever that's in the Hongkee's mind. The action is good but the plot is as empty as Avenue K. Overall, Ethan Hunt looks cool in a black leather jacket, shades and riding a black superbike.

Mission Impossible 3 :
MI3 was directed by JJ Abrams. The guy behind Lost and Cloverfield. One helluva TV series and one helluva movie. This time, we get to see Ethan's vulnerability. You see, his wife was captured and he has to fight for his life. The action scenes were good as well but this 3rd installment showed the human side of Ethan Hunt. On another totally unrelated note, there is a scene where Ethan was waiting for the bad guys in an abandoned land and if you watch closely,a Malaysian Airlines billboard is seen right behind him. Maybe it was Miguel's beady little eyes but do check it out.

Summary :
All three movies were directed by three different directors and the best thing is, you need not have to watch the Mission Impossible trilogy in ascending order unlike Indiana Jones !,2,3 / Star Wars 1,2,3,4,5,6 / LOTR 1,2,3 / Casino Royale-QoS. If I were you, I'd watch it in this combination

a) MI3
b) MI1
c) MI2

I hear they will be filming a 4th installment of the Mission Impossible franchise and it'll be directed by our Malaysian director. the guy who brought us the classic XX Ray - goofy nerdy looking bugger - Aziz M Osman.
Aziz M Osman

It'll be called Mission Impossibler. Pun intended.

2 comments:

Srikanth Siva said...

cant wait for aziz's version filmed in malaysia. With tom cruise eating nasi lemak and drinking air tebu.

Together We Prosper said...

Can you post a photo of Ethan Hunt for Mission Impossibler?