Creating a successful franchise can be difficult even for one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and when Tom Cruise, at the height of his popularity 27 years ago, announced that he was going to transport Mission Impossible – the hit TV series of the 1960s – to the big screen, many people turned up their noses. After all, espionage was a context that made sense in the Cold War, but even James Bond was having trouble maintaining his relevance with the fall of the Soviet Union. Mission: Impossible was born as a film, but grew as a franchise and today is responsible for nurturing the unbeatable image of the star in action films for almost 30 years. Proof of this is that after three years of troubled filming, the first part of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning arrives in theaters in July 2023. A great time to revisit previous films.

Mission: Impossible marked Tom Cruise‘s career as a producer and since then we’ve only seen him gain praise and space. One of the hallmarks of the first three films was having renowned directors in the chair, starting with Brian de Palma, moving on to John Woo, then J. J. Abrahams and Brad Bird before gaining another level with Christopher McQuarrie, who has been Cruise’s partner since 2015. in the franchise. Between villains and good guys, a mix of ‘new’ talents and legendary actors, from Jon Voight and Vanessa Redgrave to Anthony Hopkins, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Angela Basset, as well as Billy Crudup, Vanessa Kirby, and Jeremy Renner, to name a few. Lalo Schiffrin‘s classic theme also gets updated versions, from Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton of U2 to Hans Zimmer.

Comparing the six films already released in the franchise allows us to understand the maturity of Tom Cruise as a producer. In the first two films, just four years apart, it’s almost always Ethan Hunt alone solving everything, with occasional team help (at least you can always count on Luther Stickwell (Ving Rhames) the only one who is also in all of Mission Impossible. From the third, in 2006, Ethan’s personal life gained weight and the team came together, with Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) working with him.

There are many interesting factors built over these almost three decades. The origin stories of each of the members of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF in Portuguese, IMF in English) are never detailed, not even explained, but we always know skillful and intelligent agents. While reaction to Ethan Hunt’s dominance ranged from negative to lukewarm (all well-known characters from the series, including Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) were unceremoniously eliminated within just 30 minutes of the original film, a bold move by DePalma to make it clear that it wasn’t remake), gradually Ethan became an American James Bond and less dramatic than Jason Bourne. Unsurprisingly, the franchise has grossed a mere three and a half billion dollars to date.

The common factor of all the Missions is a certain paranoia of Ethan Hunt, justified by so many betrayals and conspiracies, but which was organized with the “Syndicate”, materializing an enemy easier to identify. After all, it was already easy to anticipate that the boss would sell the team to earn more money on the black market, but the Hitchcokian formula of the “wrong man” also holds. As promised in the subtitle, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning brings names and faces from Ethan Hunt’s past, in an adventure that promises to be more dramatic.

Let’s review:

Mission: Impossible (1996)

In the first film, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is framed for the murder of his IMF team during a botched mission in Prague and accused of selling government secrets to an arms dealer known only as “Max” (Vanessa Redgrave). On the run, Ethan seeks to uncover the real traitor and clear his name. There are two ‘classic’ sequences, the helicopter inside the tunnel, but even more, that of Tom Cruise descending silently into the vault, in a tense scene that highlights the actor’s physical command. Imitated ever since.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
With the doves and John Woo’s slow motion, Ethan returns to the action in Australia, where he becomes involved and works with professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton) to stop IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from starting a pandemic of a deadly virus and sell the antidote to the highest bidder. In current times, super realistic! Here, the breathtaking sequences were the knife almost piercing Tom Cruise’s eye and the motorcycle duel that he dismissed as a stuntman.

Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Six years after saving the world, Ethan Hunt is retiring and marrying doctor Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan), from whom he hides his work. When an agent trained by him disappears, Ethan returns to action to try to save her and face the cruel arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who intends to sell a mysterious dangerous object known as “The Rabbit’s Foot” and puts the agent’s entire future at risk. The sequence of the explosion on the bridge was the most publicized with the actor dispensing with stuntmen.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
The film in which it was suspected that Tom would pass the baton to Jeremy Renner, similarly tested to inherit Jason Bourne. Ethan Hunt, missing and located in Russia, is accused with his team of bombing the Kremlin while they investigate an individual known only as “Cobalt” (Michael Nyqvist), needing to stop him from starting a global nuclear war. At one point, Ethan has to jump from the tallest building in Abu Dhabi. So it is.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
Divorced and more than ever dedicated to his work, Ethan Hunt is under threat from the criminal organization known as the Syndicate. Faced with the dissolution of the IMF, the agent gathers his team for the mission to prove the existence of the Syndicate and overthrow the organization by any means necessary. It’s when he meets Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Starting with Tom Cruise hanging from a plane taking off, in the six-minute dive, the ‘dangerous’ sequences multiply and become a definitive part of the marketing.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
For many, the best film in the franchise. When an IMF mission to recover plutonium goes awry, the world is faced with the threat of the Apostles, a terrorist subgroup of former Syndicate members. As Ethan Hunt takes it upon himself to carry out the original mission, the CIA begins to question his loyalties and motives. The knife fight in the bathroom, the helicopter chase sequence and also the motorbike chase in Paris… it’s hard to choose the best! And the reunion with Julia, Ethan’s choice for Ilsa… emotion and action in the perfect dose.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a terrifying weapon that threatens humanity before it falls into the wrong hands.

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