Movie Review: Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible III

I thought that the first Mission: Impossible movie was something increasingly rare from Hollywood these days: a complex and clever film that actually required an attention span and a triple-digit IQ to appreciate (I must have thought something less of the first sequel since I can't, for the life of me, recall anything about it). I had hopes that this third installment — unofficially considered the first of this year's summer blockbusters — might be at least somewhat worthy of its predecessor. Unfortunately, I suspect it takes more after the second film than it all too obviously doesn't much resemble the first.

Mission: Impossible III opens with a very disturbing scene. IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is tied to a chair. Facing him is his beautiful wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan) who is bound, gagged, and utterly terrified by the gun held to her head by the nefarious Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Davian demands Hunt tell him where he can find "the rabbit's foot." Desperate, Hunt promises Davian anything if he'll only let Julia go. Just as time runs out, we're propelled into the recent past where we see...

Agent Ethan Hunt is now an apparently kinder, gentler version of his earlier self. He's retired from field work and is working as a trainer for up and coming IMF agents. He's even engaged to marry a woman named Julia who he clearly adores and with whom he seems poised to gain the family he's long been missing. But during his engagement party, he receives a contact from his boss, John Musgrave (Billy Crudup), he can't ignore.

According to the information he gets from Musgrave, IMF Agent Lindsey Ferris (Keri Russell) has been taken captive by the mysterious arms dealer, Owen Davian. Davian has long been a target of the IMF, and it seems Agent Ferris got too close for comfort. In an effort to retrieve whatever information it was she found, the IMF is determined to launch a rescue mission. It offers a place on the team to Hunt out of sensitivity to the fact Ferris is one of his most successful trainees.

His sense of personal responsibility for Ferris won't let him refuse, and so Hunt tells Julia he's headed to Houston on business and promptly joins the hurriedly assembled rescue team. Other team members include the familiar Luther Strickell (Ving Rhames) and newcomers Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Zhen (Maggie Q), who each offer their own specialties to the planning process as the group heads to Germany to save the kidnapped girl.

During the course of events that quickly unfold, the team determines it can only realize true success if it goes after Davian himself. This, of course, leads the team members into highly unapproved territory, and Musgrave is more than a little concerned. Musgrave's boss, John Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) doesn't bother with concern. He's going to take action to ensure the team doesn't go its own way! But when Julia is taken hostage by Davian, Hunt's focus doesn't even touch on whether or not he ought to do what he's doing. He's just determined to find and rescue his wife, whatever the cost may be.

Tom Cruise isn't a bad actor. In fact, in a movie like this (loaded with action sequences as opposed to especially dramatic moments), he's actually quite good. His personal antics of the last year, however, make it difficult to see him purely as Agent Ethan Hunt. It gets even harder to do when he shares the screen with Michelle Monaghan, who bears some resemblance to Cruise's current real-life paramour (the very young and apparently very impressionable Katie Holmes).

The most gripping parts of the film occur when Philip Seymour Hoffman is onscreen. Hoffman takes the character of a very bad guy and makes him less evil than he is utterly amoral. Somehow, that makes Davian seem all the more frightening. And when Davian determines to fight back, Hoffman's voice and demeanor are still quiet and understated, but with an undercurrent of sadism that's truly terrifying.

The supporting cast is largely two-dimensional since all we really see of them is the bare minimum necessary for them to play their respective roles. Each does a perfectly fine job, but there's little screen time that let's us see if any of them could do better than that. Meanwhile, Ving Rhames' character is saddled with a few moments of comedic relief that are utterly out of character and jarring in context. No actor, no matter how good, could possibly have delivered those lines with anything resembling anything but the silly slapstick it is.

Director J.J. Abrams exhibits a sure hand with action sequences in particular, and the special effects are at least as good as advertised. Those who like it when things go boom and guns go bang are going to have plenty to watch and enjoy in Mission: Impossible III (you'll want to pay special attention to a very well edited helicopter chase scene that features a field of power-generating windmills). The editing and sets are also quite good. In the case of the latter, scenes set behind the Vatican walls are particularly impressive. The screenplay (written by Abrams in partnership with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci — who also wrote a number of TV's Alias episodes), however, has some real problems not least of which is the fact the storyline is relatively simplistic and utterly predictable from start to finish.

Mission: Impossible III isn't necessarily an unsuitable start to the summer season, but it's disappointing on many levels. It's got plenty of action and some suspense, yet I found my mind wandering and wondering when the movie would finally be over (it's just a little over two hours long). And when I left the theatre, my thoughts immediately moved on to other things rather than mulling over and appreciating all I'd just seen. Neither of those things make for a particularly strong recommendation for this film.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Mission: Impossible III is rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images, and some sensuality." That rating is probably just about right. There are some pictures that are entirely too much for young children (close-ups of the face of a dead agent are particularly disturbing), and some of the more suspenseful scenes are likely to be well over the top for little ones. The average 13 year-old (particularly if he's a boy) isn't going to have a problem watching this movie, however, and many adults will enjoy themselves too — assuming they're there for the thrill ride and not for anything else.