TV series making the transition to the big screen has been all the rage for years, but more often than not they fall flat. When Tom Cruise teamed up with Brian De Palma to bring Mission Impossible to the big screen in 1996 no one could have imagined that it would still be going strong today. With the sixth entry into the franchise Fallout getting ready to hit theaters what better time to revisit the entire series with all new 4K Ultra releases of the first five films.

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In the original Mission Impossible Jim Phelps was sent to Prague for a mission to prevent the theft of classified material. His wife Claire and his trusted partner Ethan Hunt were members of Phelps' team. Unfortunately, something went horribly wrong and the mission failed, leaving Ethan Hunt the lone survivor. After he reported the failed mission, Kettridge the head of the agency suspects Ethan of being the culprit for the failed mission. Now, Ethan uses unorthodox methods, which includes the aid of an arms dealer going by the name "Max" to try to find who set him up and to clear his name. This was a big gamble since TV to film remakes rarely worked, but thanks to an engaging mystery some good action and the perfect casting of Cruise it stood out. I was never a huge fan of this first film as it felt a bit slow to me, but upon revisiting it I found it to have a great story that worked well, but we are just spoiled now with the over the top action. There are plenty of fun action moments, but this film plays up the espionage side with plenty of twists and turns to create something that clearly went onto be one of the best action franchises of all time.

 

In the second entry Mission Impossible 2 Chimera is a deadly virus that will bare a deathly death unless you are given the antidote. The creator of Chimera is murdered and the antidote is stolen by a disavowed IMF agent, Sean Ambrose. The Impossible Mission Force, IMF, hire the skilled and charming Ethan Hunt, and the beautiful Nyah Nirdoff-Hall, who has had her share with Ambrose. Their mission, should they choose to accept it is to send Hirdoff-Hall undercover to Ambrose and learn what she can for Hunt to bring down Chimera, but they will have to break into a secure lab by jumping off buildings and dodging bullets. This time around they enlisted action director icon John Woo to lead the charge alongside Cruise and stepped up the action big time. Woo’s signature style merged perfectly with this series and offered up some awesome fights and sequences. Sadly where this one brings the action it fell short on the story side. Although elements to this film don’t always work I still think the beach fight between Cruise and Dougray Scott to be one of the best in the series.

 

These all-new 4K releases offer up not only great Full HD resolution for a bigger better picture, but also bonus content including photo galleries, commentaries, alternate sequences and featurettes that take you behind bringing these early chapters of the franchise to the big screen. Choose to accept your mission and grab your copy of any of the five chapters of the Mission Impossible franchise when they hit 4K Ultra HD on June 26th from Paramount Home Entertainment.