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The then-small-but-growing ranks of the Extremely Online chuckled over the pictures representation of how the internet works.
No, there was definitely somethinguncoolaboutMission: Impossible.
It was somehow both too smart for its own good and also, weirdly, not smart enough.
Besides, Tom Cruise: action star?What?
However, hed soon be nominated for that yearsJerry Maguireand, not long after,Magnolia.
He still hasnt won that Oscar.)
That odd choice would soon prove prophetic.
Did Cruise himself recognize that this would become the way of the world?
He still had a good decade of star turns ahead of him.
So, what was that idea?
And how has it endured so long?
Is it just, you know,stunts?
Not quite.Mission: Impossibledelivered a new spin on properly utilizing what was then Cruises thermonuclear star power.
The man could no longer grin his way through his challenges.
The trick, it turned out, was to add a bit of slapstick.
And weirdly, he seems to know it.
For all the theatricality of his performances, Cruise is great at deadpan.
Ethan even becomes, for a while, one of De Palmas classic sexual marks.
Today, it feels downright heated.
Still, who could have foreseen it?
None of us predicted that, one day,Mission: Impossiblewould be cool.
