Paramount has issued 'Mission: Impossible' in both widescreen format and in a carelessly panned-and-scanned version. Forget the cropped version. The only way to see this movie in its full Panavision aspect ratio. The letterboxed disc measures in at 2.35:1 which allows you to appreciate director Brian De Palma’s eccentric camera angles and cleverly-choreographed visuals. The picture, THX mastered, is flawless: the colors are bright and the image is razor-sharp.
'Mission: Impossible' has been given the Dolby Digital AC-3 treatment and it’s senses-shattering: from the opening moments of Lalo Schiffrin’s infamous theme music (done magnificent justice by composer Danny Elfman) to the perfect quiet of the vault sequence, to the awesome 360-degree acoustics accompanying the slick train/tunnel climax, this is one of the most awesome laserdiscs you’ll ever hear. And the traditional Dolby Pro Logic Surround is nothing to shake a stick at, either.
The film could have fit rather comfortably onto 2 sides of a single platter, with a side break during a natural scene cut during the vault/break-in sequence (I’ve seen side breaks that are more abrupt than this one would have been). However, the film is spread to a third side, so that the exciting train/tunnel climax is in CAV format. While the CAV encoding permits frame-by-frame examination of the (mostly) mind-boggling special effects, the extra side break disrupts the movie more times than it’s necessary. It also blatantly reveals the movie’s most consistent criticism: that the last 20 minutes of the movie are the best, and the remainder of the film, while pretty to look at, is muddled nonsense.
There are no extras on the disc—though there were two terrific theatrical trailers and a music video for the theme song that could have found their way onto the disc somewhere. That would have been nice.
Stats: Paramount Home Video; 2 discs, 3 sides; CLV, side 3 in CAV; Anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1); Stereo Surround; Dolby Digital AC-3; THX; Chapter stops; Closed captioned; $44.98.
S. Damien Segal.
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