Mission: Impossible III (2006)
The Cast
Tom Cruise .... Ethan Hunt
Philip Seymour Hoffman .... Owen Davian
Ving Rhames .... Luther Stickell
Billy Crudup .... Musgrave
Michelle Monaghan .... Julia Meade
Jonathan Rhys Meyers .... Declan Gormley
Keri Russell .... Lindsey Farris
Maggie Q .... Zhen Lei
Simon Pegg .... Benji
Laurence Fishburne .... Theodore Brassel
Carla Gallo .... Beth
Greg Grunberg .... Kevin
Maybe if I hadn't just finished watching Season Two of 24, the reasoning behind the inexplicable character turn of a character in the movie would've had just a wee bit more impact. It's a completely plausible idea, and one I'm sure has been batted around the White House office on more than one occasion. However, there is much in M: I 3 that is inexcusably implausible and I'm not at all surprised by it. After all, J.J. Abrams both directed and wrote the movie and I'm 90% sure that most of his ideas start out as "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and then bumbling around 'til he finds a somewhat satisfactory resolution.
I'm not even going to get into the story because who cares reallly? It's a popcorn movie, and definitely an edge of your seat popcorn movie at that. First of all, the structure of the movie is annoying as hell. Start off with a future scene then most of the rest of the movie is a flashback? Completely unecessary and overused by filmmakers from the mid 90s to today (thanks QT for being so influential). Then there's the pseudo-real-timing of the whole movie, another tactic designed to inject tension into the corpse of this film. The problem is, Abrams cheats his way out of these time-sensitive situations by proceeding directly to the end of them. Sure, we all knew Ethan Hunt (Cruise) was going to accomplish his task, but relegating the result to nothing more than a soft elbow nudge to the ribs and a wink to a knowing audience doesn't exactly fill your movie with substance.
There's a lot of big names and up and comers in the cast of the movie. Too bad they weren't given anything great to work with. Anytime there seems to be a bit of character development, it's interrupted by Hunt's histronics or a not-so-subtle inside joke for the audience. Yeah, we get it, the IMF team is awesome at everything, ha ha. There's about three great performances and the rest are just there, able to be performed by pretty much anyone on Hollywood's exotic foreigner B-list.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent as the bad ass villain Owen Davian, even though his character drifts over into the "I'm so ridiculously smart there's no way I will ever be eliminated" territory a little too much. Simon Pegg plays his guaranteed scene-stealing role to perfection, and Laurence Fishburne is simply a joy to watch in a role that is far beneath him. I was hoping Greg Grunberg would turn out to be a mole throughout the movie, just because of how much Abrams loves to put him in everything he does, but no such luck. Everyone else is middling to good, and whoever authorised that odd shave job on Billy Crudup should've been fired Day 1 of filming.
I'm fairly certain that 24 has spoiled me, that I won't be able to fully enjoy spy movies like this one to their fullest extent ever again. I get that the IMF team is trained in accomplishing so-called "impossible missions", but I don't get how they can get one of those pitching machines in Shanghai with less than two hours to save Hunt's wife. The action scenes are great, occasionally jaw-droppingly awesome, but it basically boils down to style over substance. M: I 3 seems to think it's above being a popcorn movie, and that in itself is it's failure as a popcorn movie. That and showing poor Felicity's disturbing deathmask a couple times. I get it J.J., it's shocking, thanks. A passable action flick that you should definitely go into with your brain turned off.
3 / 5