Mission: Impossible III
2006
* * *
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is about to get married to a nurse named Julia (Michelle Monaghan) when a friend at IMF (Billy Crudup) asks him to go on a mission to save a captured agent (Keri Russell) on the trail of one Owen Davien (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) out to get some kind of device called the "Rabbit's Foot." Reluctantly, Ethan gathers together his allies (Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Maggie Q) to find the agent and capture Davian without his annoyed boss (Laurence Fishburne) stopping him.
The third in the series is kind of stuck between the first two. Unlike the second one, it does actually have a halfway decent plot, and, while it isn't quite as involving as the first one, it's a heck of a lot easier to follow. Character-wise, this is probably the strongest of the three. The movie insists on at least creating some depth for the characters in spite of its lightning pace. Cruise looks and acts as cool as ever and finds the depth he's allowed with the character; as always in the Ethan Hunt role, he feels far more human and vulnerable than most action heroes. Monaghan does a fine job as his fiancee. Hoffman is a great villain. And I mean a deeply, truly evil guy. Honestly, he's one of the better villains in recent action films. As you can see above, the rest are all talented individuals, and they all give it their best shot.
Director/cowriter JJ Abrams keeps this thing seriously moving. Never for a second does it really slow down. It also has a few very clever twists in addition to the predictable double-crosses and such. The action scenes are adequately big, loud, and exciting. However, Abrams just doesn't put action together with the style, heart-pounding thrills, and memorability as either Brian de Palma or John Woo. De Palma and Woo are absolute masters of style and action, and Abrams doesn't even begin to approach them. Nor does the film capture the cool (and cold) espionage feel that the first one did. As entertaining and exciting as the film is, it feels oddly routine. Action scenes seem to be harder to make memorable these days; in the 90s, it was as if almost all the big-budget summer films at least succeeded there. Either that, or they're being put together by people who know how to make it loud but not heart-pounding. The scenes here have elements that should make it memorable; however, Abrams doesn't have that mastery over the mix of sound effects, music, and visuals that De Palma and Woo had.
The scenes here are good, exciting scenes, and often very clever, but they're fairly forgettable - these are sets exploding, not set-pieces. It's a very fine line, and a difficult one. Normally, it's easier to ignore the fact that they aren't standout sequences. However, I still remember vividly the train-and-helicopter-and-tunnel chase from the first and the motorcycle chase-turned slow-motion fight scene on the beach from the second. In this film, when I think back, I remember them, but I wasn't blown away. Yeah, these were more expensive scenes, but they aren't as good. Still, as far as mindless explosions, gunfights, and heists go, this gives you your money's worth. And, to be fair, this is one great sequence: the heist in Shainghai, which has the same cleverness Abrams fills elsewhere in the script. Because of the human element, the film is more enjoyable and seems to have more at stake than usual. And I probably wouldn't have complained so much, except that De Palma and Woo set the bar so high. I just hope whoever does the fourth film knows how to make great action scenes, not just good ones - without losing all the great elements that Abrams added.
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