Original 1996 “Mission: Impossible” Enjoyable

Brian de Palma’s cross-continental action film Mission: Impossible (B+) is a bit heavy on the high-tech mumbo jumbo and doesn’t really give its wooden lead (Tom Cruise) much character development. But as a sturdy summer blockbuster based on a classic TV show, it holds its own. There are some dazzling set pieces and stunts, the best including Cruise’s hero-turned-marionette moment when he hovers by wires into a sound-sensitive computer chamber to pull off a vital hack. The film counts on the art of the double cross to up the ante of its complex subplots. Much of this thriller is inventive and commercial.