Movie Review : Mission: Impossible III

By Anne Brodie May 5, 2006, 3:24 GMT

Secret Agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) comes face to to face with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer while trying to keep his identity secret in order to protect his girlfriend. Directed by the creator of Lost, J.J. Abrams and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Keri Russell, and Maggie Q. ...more

Eyes are plastered all over this one, and star Tom Cruise, whose admiration factor is abysmally low, as he endures constant chatter about his career plummeting.

M: I: 3 has to be good to save his a**.

Personal life aside, Cruise must maintain his lock on power. Following a bumpy two year ride in the tabloids and on the Today show staring down Matt Lauer, he has to come back big and authentic.

M: I: 3 is awesome, but it doesn’t have much to do with him. Although he was a good, if reckless egg for doing much of his own stunt work.

It’s all about wunderkind J.J. Abrams. It’s all about his inventive direction. His visual sense and action shots are simply stunning in their daring.

Action sequences are meaty and demand viewers’ close attention. It’s bold, fast, engaging, electrifying and unique, everything a good action thriller should be.

Maybe it will save the tired big studio action genre. Abrams has breathed new life into Cruise’s career and transformed the old fashioned genre, sexing it up it up for contemporary audiences weaned on the Internet, games and technological manipulation as entertainment.

There’s a hell of a bad guy, the wondrous Philip Seymour Hoffman whose stone cold affect almost makes it unnecessary for him to do anything bad: he just is – chilling!

He does lots of bad stuff, and he has a penchant for original ideas for torture.

Onscreen, he’s the big ticket draw and extremely satisfying as yin to Cruise’s earnest yang. He’s the antidote to mediocrity. His hard expression lingers long, and like Hannibal Lechter, you can’t imagine his heart rate rising as he brutalizes captive victims.

Cruise is the film’s muscle. In a single shot, he runs along an alleyway in Shanghai, jumps down a series of abutments and dashes over a bridge before the next edit. These are the film’s most enduring action images.

Cruise is a machine. He's passionate and that passion is focused on finely tuned human energy.

The film does not showcase any Cruise acting talents, because he never breaks out of his own mould. The simmering clenched looks, the eyes-open-till they tear crying, it’s a bag of tricks he learned a long time ago – candy acting.

But naturally, acting isn’t key in M: I: 3. It’s kinetic, frenetic energy. 

Something Hollywood does extremely well is present technology of the future to us mere mortals. Its light years ahead of technological industry and wise in the ways of the study of human nature in a technological world. It knows a lot about strategy, risk management and science.

No wonder Hollywood producers and writers were called in post 9/11 to educate and brainstorm with high level politicians about possibilities.

So we’re like kids in candy shops as new gizmos and inventions and clever use of existing materials roll out. There is an eye popping sequence in which Cruise dons a facial disguise which has to be seen to be believed. Fierce props to new and as far as I know, non existent technology.

Oh, and the computer guy (Simon Pegg) is a nerd. Why not? Aren’t they all? At least he’s amusing and British.

And certainly there are no guys in this film better looking than Cruise. He produced; he can do what he wants. Watch closely for the low angle camera work to make him appear tall and lanky.

Speaking of eye candy, ‘M: I: 3’ is a magnificent travelogue, taking us inside the Vatican, swinging through the whimsical skyscrapers of Shanghai, to Washington, a creepy abandoned factory in California to the sweet domesticity of engagement celebrations in Richmond, Virginia.

Cruise can rest easy. The money will print itself for this one. But it’s not Hamlet, so audiences shouldn’t; expect that. What they’ll get is a magnificent ride.

Thanks J.J.