Mission: Impossible III - Review

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Length: 126 min

Rated: PG-13

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Release Date: 2006-05-05

Starring: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickwell), Sasha Alexander, Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Keri Russell, Michelle Monaghan, Simon Pegg, Maggie Q

Directed by J.J. Abrahms

Produced by Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner

Written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci

Visit the movie's Official Site!

Reviewed by Josh Tyler : 2006-05-03 12:02:42

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is battered, beaten, and broken. He begs for his wife’s life. He promises anything. He’ll do anything. Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) looks straight into his eyes, points a gun at his wife’s head, and fires anyway. Cue the Mission: Impossible theme music and cue writer/director J.J. Abrams’ (“Lost”, “Alias”) triumphant transition from gripping television to gripping feature filmmaking.

This newest Mission finds Tom Cruise’s Hunt semi-retired and on the verge of getting married. He has quit the field and taken a job as a trainer at the IMF. His wife to be thinks he studies traffic patterns. Since watching Ethan educate newbies isn’t much fun, he receives a self-destructing message that sends him back on active duty. He gets with his old buddy Luther (Ving Rhames), assembles a new team, and sets out after his target: a vicious arms dealer named Davian.

One of the most impressive things about Abrams’ take on the Mission franchise is that he finds a way to make it more of a team effort rather than the one man Tom Cruise show the other movies default to. This is the first of these films to even sniff the feel of the old television series which started it all. The best scene in this or any of these movies features Hunt’s strike force invading the Vatican as a group, putting to use all the gadgets and team sneaking Abrams’ script can muster. Don’t get me wrong Cruise is still clearly the focus, and especially towards its end the movie becomes almost entirely about him. There’s still plenty of Tom Cruise sprinting through the city solo, but this movie isn’t just about Tom Cruise running around by himself.

Speaking of Tom Cruise, he’s good. I mean really good. I don’t think he’s ever really turned in a bad performance, but he’s more in his element here than he’s been anywhere recently. The guy is money, and seeing him running through a canal at breakneck speed is nearly as fun as watching him fly a fighter jet into the danger zone was twenty years ago. When he’s not pulling fight duty, he’s even better. Domesticated Ethan Hunt has an easy air about him. Watching him try to explain traffic patterns to his wife’s friends works, it’s believable that at least at home, he’s been tamed. When on duty, it helps that he has a great foil here in the form of Hoffman. He’s dark, there’s death in eyes and destruction in his words when he faces Ethan. A bad guy like this is exactly what’s been missing from the Bond franchise.

MI3 has a lot in common with the last great Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies. A spy hides his identity from his wife; his wife gets dragged inadvertently into his world. But where True Lies played a lot of that comedically, Mission: Impossible 3 takes it deadly serious. Still, if you’ve seen True Lies you’ll have a pretty good idea where this one ends up. If you’re going to borrow ideas for your action movie, taking a few cues from James Cameron isn’t a bad way to go. Abrams’ borrows liberally from some of Cameron’s biggest action bits, and then betters them to raise the stakes on Ethan Hunt as he’s ripped apart over the course of the film.

The movie’s not perfect. In his quest to bring teamwork back to Mission: Impossible Abrams sometimes makes the mistake of focusing on the film’s ancillary team members a little too much. Did we really need to hear about random team member number four’s lost cat? Probably not. Teamwork yes, sappy stories no. But those are minor issues in a movie that cranks up the heat right from the start, and then lets things boil over and burn. Mission: Impossible III is so superior to its predecessors that it’s almost unfair to burden it with the name Mission: Impossible. Where the first movie was slow and sometimes boring, MI3 is non-stop, heart-pumping adrenaline. Where the second movie was slow motion flexing and zero plot development, MI3 is taut, suspenseful and sharp edged; the action is fast and the story perfectly tuned. This is J.J. Abrams’ feature film directorial debut, but he steps into big blockbuster filmmaking as if he’s been doing it all along. With “Lost” and “Alias” as his background, maybe he has been.

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Zubin Says:
May 6th, 2006 at 10:53
Hey, I'm a big fan of the movies and of your site and I rely on your reviews quite a lot to choose which movies I see because our tastes seem to match. I was just going through the review of MI-3 and I came across the part about Hoffman shooting Hunt's wife in the head and I just have one request; If you're gonna give out major plot and character details like that please put up a spoiler alert in the start of your review. It just sorta screws the movie up when you finally go and watch at the theatre, if you know what I mean. Otherwise all's good...Keep up the habit!

Josh Says:
May 6th, 2006 at 10:54
If it was a spoiler I would have. But it isn't.

That happens in the first 30 seconds of the movie, and once you've seen the entire movie you'll realize I spoiled absolutely nothing.

Not Joshua Says:
May 7th, 2006 at 17:23
I have to say I trust this site above no other in regards to films, but for about once in a blue moon, I have to disagree with this movie.
While I agree that MI-3 is superior to its predecessors, I still find it lacking in a lot of areas. The sappy stories definitely play more than just a factor, and for a movie about spies and a secret agencies there weren't nearly as many original twists and turns as you'd expect.

Spoiler Alert:
I didn't buy into his wife's death for one second, nor did I buy into his own towards the end of the film. Why? Because that would have been a truly dynamic and unorthodox bit of moviemaking. Plus it would have ruined the dynamic of the happy ending.
The Vatican sequence, while a solid part of the film, did feel a little drawn out and hyperextended at times.
The inside man took a whole two seconds to figure out once we learned that the boss' phone was used for a call.

While it has been a while since I saw the first MI, I'll concede this is probably the best movie of a weak franchise, but still not worth seeing until it hits dvd

Gordie Howl Says:
November 8th, 2006 at 00:26
Does anyone know what music was playing in the back ground at
the Hunt's dinner party where they announced their engagement ?

harry georgatos Says:
June 4th, 2007 at 19:50
The mission franchise would have to be one of the crappiest spy franchises ever. At least the Jason Bourne movies have real sweat and danger about themselves. In mission 1 Tom Cruise took Peter Graves character, Jim Phelps, and turned him into a post cold war villian and murderer. Tom Cruise would never turn Ethan Hunt into a traitor. This was a complete disrespect to fans of the tv series. The IMF sting operations in the three movies are uninterseting. Tom Cruise does not understand the mechanics of the sting operations from the tv series, that made them interesting to watch when they captured their targets. The three mission movies have cutboard cutout villians with no characterization whatsoever. Why can't we get a truelly character driven villian like Forest Whitikers turn as Idi Amin in "The Last King Of Scotland". A truelly malevolent villian such as that would have a mission film acheiving legendary status. The IMF team in the three ordinary movies basically hang around in the background. Ethan Hunt is constantly at centre stage. In "The Firm" the supporting characters made a strong impression. This should have also been the case with the mission movies. Tom Cruise had Oliver Stone set to direct from another script to only go with John Woo's pathetic mission movie. Cruise did the same on mission 3 where he had a script by accomplished writer Frank Darabont, to have been directed by David Fincher, only to go with J J Abrams teenage mission movie. I got sick of watching Ethan's family life in mission 3, I wanted to see a fully blown spy story. The three mission movies hop, skip and jump around the world in a very sloppy and clumsy narrative. The mission movies concentrate on corrupt IMF agents, instead on being based on to today's world politics. We have Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, the Russian Mafia, African Warlords, international drug cartels, the Iranian nuclear situation etc etc. I'm sick of the mission movies weak formula with villians from within IMF. In mission 2 one of the leading villians was the pharmaucetical industry. This only happened because Tom Cruise is a heavily staunch Scientologists. They're enemies are the psychiatric profession and the pharmaucetical industry. No surprise with the villians in mission 2. The three movies have no resemblance to the surreal and inventive IMF sting operations of the tv show, and suffer as a result. If mission 4 goes ahead pray that Tom Cruise is not involved, and that a gifted director and writers capture the spirit of the mesmerising antics of IMF from the tv show. I suspect Tom Cruise knows he has made three turkeys and is using the mission movies as his own personal bank account.

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Mission: Impossible III - Review

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