Special Coverage Pop Culture Classics (The EW 1000)Sound BitesSummer TVBox Office Game

After the squealing car chase, the shoot-out in the abandoned warehouse, and the bombed building, the action-movie cliche making the biggest splash this summer is the detonated fish tank. Taking a cue, perhaps, from 1985's Year of the Dragon and 1989's Lethal Weapon 2 — both of which feature exploding water worlds — Tom Cruise shatters a wall-size aquarium in Mission: Impossible and Arnold Schwarzenegger similarly empties an alligator pen in Eraser. Though both scenes are making waves with audiences, Mission co-screenwriter Robert Towne brags that his version is the big kahuna. ''The difference is in quality,'' he sniffs, adding that this trend is ''just finding its fins.'' Sounds fishy.


Sign up for EW.com's The 25 newsletter!

Stay in the know and get EW.com's top 5 stories, 5 days a week (sent weekday afternoons).
Posted Jun 28, 1996 | Published in issue #333-334 Jun 28, 1996 | Order Article Reprints