The Cold War is over, but the Impossible Mission Force is still doing what it does best: planning elaborate capers and pulling off hair-raising heists in the name of patriotism. Things have changed, of course, and _Mission: Impossible_ uses this notion to play off our expectations from the TV series of the same name.

Things start off normally enough. Well, normal for the IMF, at least. Our specialized spies are fooling everyone with their schemes, but not, as you would expect, without things going awry and creating suspense. However, when things go wrong this time around, they go really, horribly, wrong. And, this time, the problem might not be with the not quite foolproof plan. The problem might not even be enemy action. The real problem just might be that our heroes are every last bit as deceptive as they've been portrayed.

Things are rarely as they seem in Brian de Palma's films, but things do usually seem very pretty. The European settings appear elegant, baroque, and sinister all at once. Saturated colors pop out of shadowy environments. Cameras move through walls, on occasion, disorient us with odd angles, when necessary, and transform the exotic into the surreal, just before next plot twist.

But, just like the IMF's plans, or personnel, this move isn't as flawless as it might like to be. The villain's motives seem a little trite, even for someone who's been backstabbing people for decades, and the final stunt goes far enough over-the-top that the filmmakers realized they'd need to throw the audience a wink after things finally stop flying around.

All in all, however, the film does what it set out to do. It creates suspense, startles us with pyrotechnics, and turns the TV show's convoluted tropes inside out.