‘Mission’: Hang Tight : Superb Stunts and Suspense Star in an ‘Impossible’ Story

“Mission: Impossible” has lots going for it--a charismatic star in Tom Cruise, Brian De Palma’s sleek, elegant direction, a first-rate cast, a superb suspense sequence, lots of action capped by a breathtaking stunt at the climax. And all the gadgetry, special effects and stunning production design that a $64-million budget can buy.

Yet at any given moment in super-secret agent Cruise’s mission (which opens officially on Wednesday but arrives tonight for sneak previews in 1,300 theaters), it is impossible to say with any confidence what’s going on. So you should approach this like the most convoluted Chinese kung fu movie: Let it wash over you and don’t try to figure anything out. Proceed in the reasonably safe assumption that good will surely triumph over evil and that everything eventually will become clear, or at least fairly so.

Be assured that at heart, David Koepp and Robert Towne’s script--inspired by the vintage TV series and based on a story by Koepp and Steven Zaillian--is mercifully pretty simple. Prague spy chief Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) of the Impossible Missions Force deploys his staff, which includes Cruise, Emmanuelle Beart as Voight’s wife, Kristin Scott-Thomas and others, to a swanky party where they are to nail a spy selling American intelligence secrets.

But the operation goes so wrong that virtually everyone ends up dead except Cruise and Beart. Nasty key CIA honcho Henry Czerny declares that Cruise has pulled a double-cross for his own dark purposes. Well, there is that list of the top undercover agents in the world at stake, and arms dealer Vanessa Redgrave making Cruise a $10-million offer. . . .

Consequently, Cruise, who satisfies himself that Beart is not the inside traitor, is on the run, going for broke in trying to save his life and uncover the actual bad guy.

Everyone, starting with Cruise, in his producing debut, must rely on their individual personas to flesh out the people they’re playing. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is as smart as he is daring, and the actor’s engaging personality, suggesting that he’s not taking himself too seriously, is key in his ability to carry the film capably.

But if you believe that you don’t really know Ethan, you’re going to become acquainted with everyone else even less. Conveying a paternal, world-weary quality, Voight has the film’s key remark, reflecting that the obsolescence spies experience in the post-Cold War era may breed treachery.

The talented Beart, starring in the current “Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud,” is called upon here mainly to seem enigmatic and to look beautiful.

Scott-Thomas, of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Angels & Insects,” gets to register her distinctive astringency before she’s knocked off, but Ingeborge Dapkunaite, the radiant leading lady of the Oscar-winning “Burnt by the Sun,” is little more than an extra.

Jean Reno and Ving Rhames, however, have the opportunity to make more solid impressions as seasoned IMF hands Hunt recruits for his mission. With comparatively small screen time, Redgrave emerges as the film’s most vivid presence, as a tough dame with a worldly sense of humor who seems to finds arms dealing a very sexy business.

You don’t want to give too much away about the exquisitely suspenseful set-piece, except to say it involves a break-in at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. As for that best of the best among the film’s action sequences, let’s just say that it involves a helicopter chasing a train in an unexpected circumstance.

Typically, for Hollywood “event” movies, every technical and design element is state of the art, starting with Industrial Light & Magic’s special visual effects and invisible-to-the-naked-eye animation. Production designer Norman Reynolds captures the gorgeous Art Nouveau and Art Deco elements within distinctly Eastern European vintage grandeur as well as the Streamline Moderne interior of the CIA headquarters; Stephen H. Burum’s camera work gleams and Danny Elfman’s score soars, incorporating, of course, Lalo Schifrin’s familiar theme from the TV series.

When you lay on the technical jargon as thick as “Mission: Impossible” does while paring away exposition almost totally, you increasingly mystify the viewer. So when the inevitable moment of truth arrives, you’d better be prepared to deliver.

But in this, “Mission: Impossible” proves something of a letdown, not just because it’s fairly easy to guess who the bad guy is but also because we’ve hardly gotten to know anyone in the movie well enough to become more than superficially involved with them.

It’s as if Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, decided to treat the spy movie--one that echoes everything from “The Perils of Pauline” through Hitchcock to James Bond--as if it were an art film verging on the elliptical puzzle that is “Last Year at Marienbad.”

The big mystery of “Mission: Impossible,” soon to be revealed at the box office, is whether Tom Cruise’s countless fans will go along with it.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for some intense action violence. Times guidelines: The film has action sequences too brutal for small children and that warrant adult accompaniment for older children.

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‘Mission: Impossible’

Tom Cruise: Ethan Hunt

Jon Voight: Jim Phelps

Emmanuelle Beart: Claire

Vanessa Redgrave: Max

A Paramount presentation of a Cruise/Wagner production. Director Brian De Palma. Producers Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner. Executive producer Paul Hitchcock. Screenplay by David Koepp and Robert Towne; from a story by Koepp and Steven Zaillian. Based on the television series created by Bruce Geller. Cinematographer Stephen H. Burum. Editor Paul Hirsch. Special visual effects and animation by Industrial Light & Magic. Costumes Penny Rose. Music Danny Elfman. “Mission: Impossible” theme by Lalo Schifrin. Production designer Norman Reynolds. Set decorator Paul Weathered. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.