Films
Jim Phelps (now played by Jon Voight) is also depicted as the leader of an IMF team in the 1996 Mission: Impossible film. In the film Phelps is depicted as a villain, a development which angered Peter Graves and Greg Morris, as well as many fans of the original series. Other members of Phelps' team are Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), who leads an IMF team in the second and third films (following the killing of Phelps in the first film); Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart), shown to be Phelps's spouse in another development that angered Graves and series fans; Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott Thomas); and Jack Harmon (Emilio Estevez). Other IMF agents throughout the film franchise include Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), disavowed at the beginning of Mission: Impossible but reinstated at the film's end; Franz Krieger (Jean Reno), disavowed; pilot Billy Baird (John Polson); rogue agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), computer specialist Benji Dunne (Simon Pegg), Jane Carter (Paula Patton), Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), Zhen Lei (Maggie Q), and Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell).
In Mission: Impossible, Phelps's superior officer, "Eugene Kittridge" (Henry Czerny), is shown working in the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters. In Mission: Impossible II, it is not as clear to whom the IMF reports. In Mission: Impossible III, the IMF is identified as an independent agency of the U.S. government, some of whose agents have a front as employees of the Virginia Department of Transportation. Hunt refers to the group as the "Impossible Mission Force." In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the agency is officially disavowed after Hunt's team are framed for the destruction of the Kremlin building as part of a plan to trigger nuclear war, but the President in response initiates the "Ghost Protocol". With the entire IMF disavowed, Hunt and his team escape captivity, retreat to a "forgotten" safehouse, and get the necessary resources to track down and defeat their enemy's plan.
Read more about this topic: Impossible Missions Force
Famous quotes containing the word films:
“Does art reflect life? In movies, yes. Because more than any other art form, films have been a mirror held up to society’s porous face.”
—Marjorie Rosen (b. 1942)
“Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)