It has become commonplace for people of my generation to celebrate the 80s as the last great decade for music, and in conversation for the greatest musical decade, period. I tend to lean that way myself.
It makes sense that the music that scored your coming of age will hold a special place in your heart. I’m sure every generation feels that way about its formative decade.
But take a look at the Hot 100 top five the week of May 25, 1985, and tell me the 80s shouldn’t be in the conversation.
Throwing back to the week of May 24, 1975, we find Earth, Wind & Fire atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Shining Star,’ the band’s only chart-topping hit. I posted that song during my Decades look at the albums of 1975.
At #2 that week was ‘Before the Next Teardrop Falls’ by Freddy Fender, an American Tejano singer. Fender started his career in 1960 but was sidelined when a marijuana possession charge landed him in jail for three years. My lord!
My final Mission: Impossible ranked list will cover one of the series’ most celebrated aspects: the STUNTS.
These are generally distinct from the set pieces, though sometimes a set piece can contain a stunt. What matters here is that Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, the world’s biggest movie star, performs a death-defying act that would normally only be attempted by an anonymous stunt man.
Cruise doing his own stunts is not a gimmick or an ego trip. It makes the action in these films visceral, because no cutaways or camera trickery are required to distract us from on-set sleight of hand. And, most important, it allows Cruise to act while doing these wild things, bringing a sense of drama and humor to the scenes that would be absent if we couldn’t see the performer’s face.
Of course every Mission: Impossible movie has a bad guy, and some have been more memorable than others.
Today, I will rank the seven films in the M:I franchise based on their VILLAINS.
#7. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – Kurt Hendricks
Michael Nyqvist is only two years older than Tom Cruise, but he looks like he could be his father. And that makes it thoroughly unbelievable when his nuclear strategist character has an extended fistfight with Ethan, or beats him in a footrace. Apart from the visual mismatch, Hendricks is just a boring villain with no sense of menace apart from his access to nuclear codes.
My next Mission: Impossible countdown covers an element of these movies that borders on problematic: the treatment of the women characters.
The series has a bad habit of introducing a new woman (sometimes a love interest, always a brunette) only to ditch her by the next movie, either through death or by simply not referencing her again. There are some exceptions, which I’ll get to.
So let me kick off my ranking of the WOMEN of Mission: Impossible.
Meet Me In Montauk 