Mission:Impossible 3 Review

“A fun mash-up of the first two movies”

I’ve been a big Mission:Impossible fan since FX used to air the old show.  Then De Palma came out with Mission: Impossible and I loved the twisty, mind-game that was.  Then John Woo mixed it in with his wholesome blend of super-action in Mission: Impossible 2.  Albeit to say, while I enjoyed the second movie, it was not what I remembered and I saw the franchise going down “popcorn highway”.

Thank’s to J.J. Abrams, that fate has been changed.  MI3 holds truer to the original show in that it is more about the challenge facing a team rather than Woo’s “lone gun-men”(Thanks Todd) take.  The situations the team is put in are also more reminiscent as Mission:Impossible was originally about not killing people unless need be.  It was a theatrical staging by the team, not run in and shoot up the place.  It causes the viewers to sit in awe of the precision of the operation, not the explosions. It causes for thrilling situations.

MI3 has many of those.  It also has a really personal connection this time around to Ethan Hunt(Tom Cruise).  Hunt get’s called back into action to find a captured agent and to help find something called the “Rabbits Foot”.  Holding the “Rabbits Foot” is the uber-evil Owen Damien(Phillip Seymour Hoffman).  Like the other movies, the action spans many different sets and has many thrilling action beats.  The opening scene alone is worth a gander into the theater that this movie is playing in, as it completely floored me.

I wasn’t quite sold on Cruise’s relationship with his girlfriend in the movie.  The relationship seemed force and not really genuine. Their wasn’t any really chemistry between the two of them.  The new team members grew on me throughout the film, with Johnathan Rhys Meyers not reclaiming his “annoying girly” persona circa Match Point. Damien is played to pure evil perfection by Hoffman as a villain that encompasses the term “sadistic”.  He cares about no one but himself and shows literally no weakness, because for whatever weakness there was, somewhere along the way he hurt/killed/maimed someone to mask it.  There is depth to his character, but not enough screen time to flush it out. I was also digging Billy Crudup’s character as Hunt’s boss essentially.  Cruise was nothing less than solid and was backed-up by decent preformances is essentially what occured in this flick.

The movie was shot in a really cool way with focuses on the characters and close-ups that were shot with an “un-Steady” cam.  Definetely set the mood.  My favorite sequence was the bridge attack which was just purely cool, thrilling action.  The first operation was also really cool and the most reminiscent of the TV Show.  The last 20-30 minutes were pretty dissapointing to me with a lackluster ending.  Endings should be very climactic, and this movie wasn’t.

All in all, let me say that this movie was a good blend of gun-play and thrilling action as well as a cool story.  I’d reccomend seeing this to any fan of the series and to anybody looking to be excited for 2 hours.  MI3 brought me back but still missed on some of the marks.  I’m giving this a 7/10 Bones, only because of the lackluster ending and arguable chemistry.

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