Mission Impossible - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Mission Impossible



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Fans of the Mission Impossible series have been BEGGING for a re-release of the original films that wasn’t just a re-package of the same cruddy MPEG2 releases that Paramount has been recycling for over 10 years. Luckily Paramount has finally heard the call, and just in time for the latest Mission Impossible film in July, are releasing all 5 of the films in 4K UHD combo packs a month early. The later 2 films are nice and shiny new, so they don’t have the problems that the original trilogy had, but it’s been a LOOOOOOOOOONG time coming to see the “classic” films given the treatment they deserve. This effort by Paramount is done nearly impeccably, giving us a much needed boost to the video and audio, and gives us some really snazzy looking art work as well. You’re mission, should you choose to accept, is to upgrade your old and aging Blu-rays with a nice new 4K UHD disc that will give you everything that you’ve been wanting in your home theater.

I was a 14 year old kid back in 1996, but I still remember my parents taking me to go see Mission Impossible (mostly due to my parent’s love of the original TV series) and staring with wide eyed delight at Brian De Palma’s love letter to the 1960s spy genre. It was fun, cheesy, full of hilariously goofy action sequences, and a couple of scenes that have become iconic in film history. Not to mention a baby faced Tom Cruise at the peak of his career and an all star cast that just made the film come to life.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is an IMF (Impossible Missions Force) agent for the government, but after a botched assignment where his entire team is slaughtered, he comes to realize that he’s been played dirty. His boss’s boss, Kittridge (Henry Czerny) was actually running a mole hunt in an effort to sniff out a deep seeded mole in the agency. With Ethan being the only survivor he’s naturally thought of as the mole and has to make a run for his life and figure out what’s going on. After escaping IMF custody, Ethan finds out that he’s NOT the only survivor. The team lead’s wife Claire (Emnanuelle Beart), who was also on the IMF team, has survived leaving more doubt as to who the ACTUAL mole is. Digging back through the information they have, Ethan and Claire come to the conclusion that the NOC list (a list of all undercover agents in the field that they could be sold on the black market for bookoo bucks) in CIA headquarters is their only hope. They need to steal the list, flush out the original buyer for the botched operation, and find out WHO sold them out in the first place.

While Ethan is super spy, he has been disavowed by the IMF and his resources are now limited, so breaking into the most highly secure building in the entire United States, and stealing a highly classified document is going to take a bit more than just Ethan and Caire’s skills. This means turning to a pair of disavowed spies by the name of Luther (Ving Rhames) and Krieger (Jean Reno), who are experts in hacking and getaway driving, to get in, get out, and get that list to the buyer in an effort to flush out the real traitor, whomever he/she may be.

Mission Impossible is probably the most TRUE film of the entire franchise to the original 1966 TV series starring Frank Graves. However, there are some distinct differences in the “modern” (at the time) movie. Frank Graves actually was asked to come back as James Phelps, but he declined due to the fact that Phelps would turn out to be the villain in the film instead of the hero (giving that distinction to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt). This caused a mild stir among cinema goers as their classic hero became the villain, and a new hero took his place. Ironically, very few people today remember the classic TV show, and consider Tom’s Ethan Hunt to be the definitive IMF agent. A phenomenon that has been largely due to Cruise’s incredible charisma, charm and dedication to keeping the film franchise fresh and exciting for over 22 years.

I find Mission Impossible to be my favorite of the series, despite some outdated technology and cheesy writing. The film really feels a lot more like a cold war era spy movie with a twist, which makes it all the more charming to this reviewer. The action is not nearly as exotic, the places not nearly so big and, and the stunts not as wild, but this is where it all started for the movies. Tom Cruise was baby faced as ever, but oh so much fun as the naive Ethan, and Brian De Palma gave us some of the most iconic action scenes in cinema history. That suspension scene where Hunt steals the noc list, and the bullet train end scene are probably two of the most highly revered sequences in the series, and have been copied and parodied and studied by other film makers for the last 2 decades. It’s the perfect mix of exciting, cheesy, high tech (at the time) and fun, and easily the one film I revisit in the series the most.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some intense action violence




4K Video: Video:

Now on to the information you’re REALLY here for. How does it look and sound? Well, the original 2007 Blu-ray (and all of the re-releases that have followed) was taken from an ABYSMAL master, then transferred to an MPEG2 BD 25 disc during the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war. The end result was a film that really was no better than the beaten up DVD, and in some ways worse! It was smeary, there was mild ghosting, and the colors were drab and bland. Honestly it’s one of the worst large blockbuster films in my collection when it comes to picture quality. Thankfully Paramount has gone out of it’s way to completely blow the doors off of that old release, giving us a new master that is light years ahead of the crummy 2007 release in every way. The picture is still decently grainy, but it’s very even across the board, with only mild spikes in a few scenes (one of the obvious ones is when Kittridge arrives in the Helo with Barnes and gets the bullet train tickets). Fine details are absolutely amazing for the most part, showing off details and nuances in the picture that I’ve never seen before. While those are all nice, the use of HDR in the film (and actually using a master that isn’t artificially drab) is a revelation. Colors just pop off the screen, and you can see all sorts of little shades of colors that I didn’t realize was even IN the film. The scene where Hunt and Kittridge meet at the beginning shows differing shades of blues and greens in the restaurant, and the bright red of the double decker bus near the end is so vibrant and rich. Honestly, this is the best I’ve EVER seen the film, and it is well worth upgrading from the horrific Blu-ray.






Audio:

One of the biggest caveats of the original three Mission Impossible films from 2007 was the lack of lossless audio. All three came with 640 kbps 5.1 Dolby Digital tracks, and while they weren’t AWFUL, they were definitely a bit thinner and weaker than they could have been. These new 4K UHD discs don’t go all out and mix them in Atmos, but they DO get a really nice upgrade in the form of a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD Lossless track, which sounds really impressive. The mix was never a wild one like some of the later films, but the front of the room opens up quite a bit, as does the low end with the chaos of the bullet train sequence. Surrounds can be a bit sparse, but they do come up with some solid interaction with the front of the track in quite a few spots. The opening sequence is really great for listening to how much fuller and richer the track is over the Bluray, with it adding weight the elevator, as well as how the music in the ball room actually flows effortlessly through the mix. While not a perfect audio mix in comparison to today’s mixing, it is a large step up from the underwhelming Dolby Digital 5.1 mix of 11 years ago.







Extras:

• Mission: Remarkable -- 40 Years of Creating the Impossible
• Mission: Explosive Exploits
• Mission: Spies Among Us
• Mission: Catching the Train
• Mission: International Spy Museum
• Mission: Agent Dossiers
• Excellence in Film
• Generation: Cruise
• Photo Gallery
• Mission: Marketing

Final Score: ​

Mission Impossible is wildly fun ride, and a kinetic spy movie that feels very reminiscent of cold war era spy films. Tom Cruise was at the top of his game in 1996, and as a 14 year old boy I watched the living daylights out of the film. Then wore out 2 VHS copies, have the DVD somewhere in a box, the Blu-ray, and now this 4K UHD release. There’s no more extras on the disc than what came with the Blu-ray disc from 2007, but the audio and video are MASSIVE improvements over the almost unwatchable Blu-ray. Whether you’ve bought the Blu-ray or not, the 4K UHD is the definitive version to get, and easily head and shoulders over any disc pressed to date. Highly recommended.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voigt, Kristen Scott Thomas, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Written by: Bruce Geller (TV series), David Koepp, Robert Towne (screenplay)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese DD 5.1, Portuguese DD Mono
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 110 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 26th, 2018

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

 

[Todd Anderson]

Wow... this looks like a worthy pick up in 4K!

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. A good movie to have.

 

[Michael Scott]

Wow... this looks like a worthy pick up in 4K!

All of them are actually. All three of the originals show the biggest IMPROVEMENT (they were pretty crummy on Blu-ray), but Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation look amazing due to being newer and all that jazz. I don't think you can go wrong with upgrading any of them really

 

[Todd Anderson]

Alright - gave this one a spin. I was literally floored by the video quality... audio also sounded great. Was expecting it to be a little thin, but turned out to really impressive and impactful.

This disc is getting cheaper if you hunt around!