The Mission: Impossible franchise is one of the longest-running action franchises in existence, especially with the same man starring in all the entries. By the time the second part of Dead Reckoning comes out next summer, it will be more than twenty-eight years since Tom Cruise chose to accept his first self-destructing mission. Over the course of the six films so far, plus at least two more to come, it hasn’t been all about Ethan Hunt. There have been some memorable supporting actresses, with every entry having had something to offer in the action-heroine department. As we head towards the release of #7, it seems a good point at which to honour the Misses of Mission: Impossible.
Mission: Impossible (1996) – Emmanuelle Béart as Clare Phelps
The franchise got under way with a film which was more a traditional spy thriller, director Brian De Palma’s fondness for Albert Hitchcock being apparent. The main M:I lady was French actress Béart, in what was easily the most high-profile role of her career. She plays Claire, the wife of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), and apparently the only survivor besides Ethan Hunt when a mission goes horribly wrong. She then teams up with Hunt to uncover a mole in the organization, though Claire definitely feels under-used. It’s never quite clear what her talents are, beyond dropping a malicious substance into a CIA employee’s coffee, allowing Hunt to do the famous vault heist while dangling from a cable. While one of the prettiest of M:I women, I was somewhat creeped out by her being 25 years younger than Voight.
Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) – Thandie Newton as Nyah Nordoff-Hall
This starts brightly enough, with Hunt foiling cat burglar Nordoff-Hall as she tries to steal stuff, beginning a relationship which feels quite 007-ish in the banter, and the way they chase each other in their automobiles. However, things fall apart thereafter, with the character doing little more of note, except serving as a human container for the biowespon which is at the film’s core. Her skills are never put to significant use, even when Hunt is carrying out a robbery of his own, and it doesn’t help that Newton is terrible, fully deserving her Razzie nomination. She’d go on to be much better in Westworld, but the performance at this point in her career is grating and unpleasant. Unlike Phelps, she does at least survive the film; however, the fact there wasn’t even a mention of her in the third installment, should tell you how much of an impact she made here.
Mission: Impossible III (2006) – Maggie Q as Zhen Lei
Director J.J. Abrams had already crafted a well-known spy heroine in Alias, and for his first feature, included a trio of strong female characters. These begin with Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), an IMF agent captured by the villain, whom Hunt has to rescue – she helps her own cause, though let’s just say, isn’t in the film for long. At the other end, Hunt’s nurse fiancee, Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan), proves surprisingly adept after a quick lesson about firearms use from her other half, taking out a pair of bad guys in short order. She is also remarkably unfazed by being kidnapped out of her hospital job, taken to Shanghai, and then discovering her fiance has been living an entirely separate life, kept secret from her, as a globe-trotting agent. I would be considerably more miffed by all of that…
In between though, this marks Q’s first foray outside of Hong Kong action into Hollywood. We had already become a fan of hers, although a little like Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies, it’s clear the actress was here more to look good than to kick butt in the manner to which we had become accustomed. Still, Q acquits herself well as part of the team helping prevent the “Rabbit’s Foot” Macguffin from falling into the wrong hands. Amusing anecdote: while tasked with piloting an impressive $350,000 Lamborghini, Q had never learned to drive. This may have been a factor in her having a bit of a prang in it during filming. It certainly opened doors for Q, and it wasn’t long before she had another memorable role in another major Hollywood franchise, Live Free or Die Hard. She was also invited back to not one, but two further installments to reprise the role. However, scheduling conflicts with her TV work – not least, Nikita – meant she was not able to accept the jobs.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) – Paula Patton as Jane Carter
This one likely counts as s two-for-one special, since we also get French actress Léa Seydoux in the role of assassin Sabine Moreau. She gets proceedings under way with the very cold-blooded killing of IMF agent Trevor Hanaway, and she swipes the Russian nuclear codes he was carrying. This makes things very personal for another IMF agent, Paula Patton, who was Hanaway’s handler, and this brings in a good helping of the movie’s (limited, to be honest) emotional content. Patton joins Hunt’s team as they attempt to obtain information from the Kremlin, but that operation goes very badly wrong, ending in a massive explosion for which IMF are blamed, causing the entire organization to be disavowed and go dark.
Off the books, Patton and Hunt go to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where Moreau is planning to sell the launch codes to terrorist Hendricks. In a particularly complex plan, even by the standards of the franchise, Patton pretends to be Moreau and meets Hendricks, while Hunt meets the real Moreau, and eventually captures her. This leads to an effective brawl between the two women in a hotel room high up the building. The suite’s window had earlier been removed, for the film’s signature sequence of Hunt scaling the building. You will not be surprised to learn that one of the two combatants takes an extremely long fall as a result. However, as with Maggie Q, previously agreed contracts meant that Patton was one-and-done for the series, even though the makers did want her to return.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) – Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust
Even though Faust (above) is the best female character in the franchise to this point, this section will be relatively brief. That’s because I already wrote about Ferguson in detail at the time the movie came out, so I direct you to the previous piece for a full assessment. Here, I’ll just point out that she’s every bit an equal to Hunt – she is, more or less, the British equivalent thereof – and saves his Yankee ass on more than one occasion. Not least when he’s floating, limp as a pool noodle, in an underwater cooling system. Having rewatched this recently, what I said at the time still stands: “It’s a combination of old-school grace and new-school ruthless efficiency which helps make for a winning product.” There’s a reason Ilsa became the first woman to return for a meaningful role in a second installment.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) – Vanessa Kirby as Alanna Mitsopolis, the White Widow
There are quite a few candidates here. As well as the returning Ferguson and (in the later stages) Monaghan, there’s also a female head of the CIA, Erika Sloane, played by Angela Bassett, who is every bit the hard-ass you would expect. But I want to call out Kirby’s arms dealer, not least because that’s rarely a profession in which cinema ever shows a woman operating. Alanna is assisted by her brother, Zola, who provides the muscle. But it’s entirely clear who is the brains, and who is running the organization. It also appears to be a generational business. In a nice throwback touch, she’s the daughter of Max, played by Vanessa Redgrave, who was arrested by Ethan Hunt all the way back in the first movie. Kirby had just had her eighth birthday when that came out, which gives you some idea how long the franchise has been running!
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) – Hayley Atwell as Grace
The seventh entry is split into two parts, with the first half out in July 2023, and the second… at some point after the writers and actors go back to work. There is no shortage of strong women in the opening installment, with a full quartet to choose from – though, let’s just say, there will be less competition in the next part. Ferguson and Kirby reprised their roles, but the main female role goes to Atwell, who should be familiar here due to her role as Agent Carter. While Simon Pegg’s description of Atwell’s training as “Proper Matrix shit” appears. sadly, to have been hyperbole, her lady thief held her own. She fools Ethan Hunt more than once, and is a key part of the film’s two big set-pieces, a car chase through Rome and the finale involving a series of dangling train carriages.
But, wait! There’s more! For even more action-oriented is Paris (Pom Klementieff), the main sidekick of the film’s bad guy, Gabriel – okay, technically, the movie’s villain is an AI, but let’s not get into that. While a woman of few words, she looks great, and has some of the best facial expressions. In particular, when she’s pursuing Ethan and Grace through Rome, driving a giant Hummer, she seems to rejoice in the resulting carnage, if her mayhem-induced grin is anything to go by. After being spared by Hunt, and later paying back that debt, her fate at the end of the first movie is… uncertain. But word is that Klementieff was signed for both films, and I’d love to see more of her in the franchise finale.