Ethan Hunt: Tom Cruise
Owen Davian: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Julia Meade: Michelle Monaghan
Theodore Brassel: Laurence Fishburne
Lindsey Farris: Keri Russell
Luther Stickler: Ving Rhames
Musgrave: Billy Crudup
Declan Gormley: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Zhen Lei: Maggie Q
Benji Dunn: Simon Pegg
Ethan Hunt is called back into active service to rescue an IMF agent he trained,
but he soon becomes embroiled in a plot to obtain a mysterious "Rabbit's Foot" wanted by arms dealer Owen Davian...
After numerous aborted attempts, wherein directors David Fincher (Fight Club)
and Joe Carnahan (Narc) left the project, Tom Cruise's franchise finally
founds its saviour in television supremo J.J. Abrams (creator of Alias
and Lost).
Mission: Impossible III, hereon MI-3, marks Abrams'
feature film debut, and while I'm sure the likes of Carnahan or Fincher would
have done a more spectacular job, Abrams brings a frothy sense of fun and pace
honed by years of TV, together with an emphasis on teamwork sorely missing
previously.
Tom Cruise clearly relishes playing Ethan Hunt, and what's not to enjoy
for any man living out their James Bond fantasies? MI-3's plot affords him
more emotional scenes, as Hunt is now engaged to be married and has taken a
backseat at the IMF to train agents (his fiancee blissfully unaware of this,
in shades of True Lies).
Whatever your opinion of Cruise in the wake of his couch-hopping antics on
Oprah, you can't deny the man is committed and passionate about filmmaking.
He's an actor who can deliver the physicality but also ground his character
with a believable emotional punch. Yes, he's essentially dusting off the
grinning hero he's been touting since Top Gun, but it doesn't matter.
Philip Seymour Hoffman gets to play nemesis Owen Davian, another of the
actor's patented lowlifes, but this time with a sadistic attitude that chills
the screen (watch the opening scene). Sadly, while Hoffman's great, his
character is phased out of the movie half-way through until a disappointing
face-off with Cruise at the end. It's almost as if the script was tailored
to fit around Hoffman's tight schedule, meaning he has less presence than most
bad guys. It's a shame, because Davian is a worthy villain but he's just not
used to his full potential.
Michelle Monaghan (stunning
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)
doesn't really make a lasting impression here; hamstrung by a script that sets
up her relationship with fiancee Hunt nicely, but then forgets about her until
the last 15 minutes! It's also frustrating that when she's made aware Ethan
is actually a globe-trotting secret agent she hardly bats an eyelid!
The supporting cast are an electic bunch: Ving Rhames returns as Luther,
wasted despite more screen time; Keri Russell is practically a cameo;
Laurence Fishburne is fantastic as IMF boss Brassel; Billy Crudup
is good as Musgrave; while Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys Meyers
are just background faces.
After the high-octane bore of John Woo's
MI-2,
J.J. Abrams makes a wise decision to mix more humanity into MI-3 between the
gunfire. The screenplay, by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and J.J Abrams, is
also much simpler than Brian DePalma's tangled original, with the "Rabbit's
Foot" macguffin just a thin excuse for various dilemmas.
But the streamlining works wonders. MI-3 doesn't offer much broad originality,
but it's still a very effective action movie with enough surprises and stunts
to leave you smiling, if not quite as exhilerated as you'd hoped.
The action sequences are great, particularly a tense helicopter chase through
a wind farm and a stunning bridge attack. J.J. Abrams is well-served by
legendary Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong, and the action throughout is
well choreographed and visually strong. An "impossible mission" at the Vatican
is a brilliant orchestration of action beats, even explaining how those
life-like IMF masks are created.
Overall, MI-3 is an entertaining popcorn movie with a few neat touches (brain
bombs!) and some cool stunts. It's far more enjoyable than Woo's brash effort,
although it doesn't quite eclipse DePalma's original because the script isn't
as textured. However, for pure entertainment value, MI-3 is the best of the
bunch. It was also very satisfying to see the original TV show's team aspect
better utilized than before, although this is still Tom Cruise's baby and not
a true ensemble piece.
On the whole, J.J. Abrams' movie debut succeeds on most levels, and provides
enough fun and machismo. Abrams' small screen background means it sometimes
feels like a TV episode with big-budget set-pieces, but Abrams ensures MI-3
has slick pacing and packs some thrills, so that problem can be easily
overlooked.
Mission accomplished.
The 2.35:1 widescreen image is gorgeous, with the transfer handling bright
scenes (Vatican), picking out detail in China, and coping well with the many
dark sequences (wind farm).
Dolby Digital 5.1 spits out the expected array of explosions and gunfire to
great effect, placing you amongst all the visual mayhem.
The single-disc release of MI-3 contains the following extras:
Commentary:
Director J.J. Abrams and star Tom Cruise provide an entertaining and
insightul commentary that's a great deal of fun.
The Making Of The Mission:
a featurette covering the creation of the film, never outstaying its welcome
and giving you a good overview of the challenges involved in making a
globe-trotting action spectacle. It focuses almost exclusively on filming,
so fans of post-production work like musical score and CGI effects could be
frustrated.
5 Deleted Scenes:
a typical assortment of underwhelming scenes that were quite rightly left on
the cutting room floor.
Generation Cruise:
this is a montage of clips from Tom Cruise movies, compiled by MTV. It helps
to remind you of just how many blockbuster movies Cruise has starred in since
the '80s. Not very modest of the star, but fun for Cruise fans to watch.
Trailers:
for Transformers, World Trade Center and "The Tom Cruise Collection" roundout
the disc, but if you invest in the 2-Disc Collector's Edition you'll also
have access to 7 additional featurettes, theatrical trailers, TV spots, and
a photo gallery.
This is a great release of King Kong, with a fantastic audio/visual
experience, and some very entertaining extra features. Although, despite
being a Special Edition, I'm sure a better version is on its way with more
extensive special features, but for now this first release should please
most fans.
The menu screens are slick, although not as memorable as you'd perhaps
expect, but the packaging art is first-rate. This is an essential purchase
for any fan of escapist action-adventure cinema.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
