I Choose Not to Accept This "Mission"

Mission: Impossible 3 has secured a new director, according to E! Online. The Tom Cruise May '04 release
will be helmed by Joe Carnahan. Who the what? Carnahan just directed "Narc," a film I walked out of half-way
through. Tom Cruise was an executive producer on "Narc," so that explains that. But why, why, why must
this franchise continue?

Money, greed, synergy? Out of all the mortally bankrupt film franchises, the Mission: Impossible movies were never true to their
source. The original '66-73 TV series was about team work, elaborate ruses, deceit and cool names like Jim Phelps and Barney
Collier. M:I-1 (did I mention these acronyms can also go to hell?) kills Emilio Estevez and the rest of the team in the first twenty minutes, leaving blandly-named Ethan Hunt to run, sweat and generally act like a humorless second-rate Bond. What remains is
that theme song and a lot of face-mask-ripping.

And why did they previously hire top-notch directors to do journeyman-like hackwork? The first movie had
none of Brain De Palma's glee or passion (compare it to his recent Femme Fatale), and John Woo had better
motorcycle tricks in Hard Target, for Pete's sake. And despite a few slo-mo white doves shots, there were
little of the directors' style or panache in the films. Maybe Joe C. will enliven the franchise with
more signature black and white quickly edited shots of crack-smoking. Either way, Carnahack as director makes
sense. So does killing the series and giving Cruise the spy franchise he really wants.

Media Yenta's Brother

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Reactions are in.
From CP:
CrapMeter@yahoo.com



First of all, if you walked out of Narc you are a fucking retard or just an arthouse snob. It was a riviting story, well acted, well shot, well edited. Given the severe budgetary problems they experienced, it was a miracle it was finished at all. Tom Cruise was listed as executive producer because he bailed the film out half way through production. He invested based on the footage already shot and had no say in the script or pre-production. He was not in on the planning at all, and didn't have much involvement with post production either. It would not have taken much investigating for you to find this out. Joe Carnahan did a great job with what he had.

I do, however, agree with your perception of the MI franchise. It has survived only on shiney objects and slick production values. It may interest you to know that Carnahan was also not a fan of the previous two MI's. He said he would be interested only if they could do a punk rock version. We shall see how it turns out. But if you remain disinterested you can always rent Remains of the Day.