When I first watched Mission: Impossible, and Tom Cruise’s first outing as Ethan Hunt – I was much younger – still in High School, with a degree of familiarity with the TV series from watching reruns on TV on Saturday mornings, or on cable on TV Land, and with a limited degree of familiarity with the spy or the suspense genre as a whole. So, I don’t think it worked for me the way that Brian De Palma intended. However, the passage of time has lead me to have more experience with thrillers, the spy genre in its multiple flavors, and some of De Palma’s other work (such as The Untouchables), which has lead me to a place where I think I’m able to re-appraise this film on its own terms – and I think it fares much better in this re-appraisal.