My Take - Mission: Impossible III - review
My Take on the Movies
A Mini-Review of
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III
By: A. L. “Toni” Anderson
Tom Cruise is back as Impossible Mission Forces agent Ethan Hunt in the 2006 installment of the Mission: Impossible series. He is retired from field work in favor of training recruits, but when his best student (Keri Russell) is captured, he is forced back into the game. The screenplay is written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and J. J. Abrams, and is based on the 1988 television series created by Bruce Geller. The film is directed by J. J. Abrams, creator of television’s Lost and Alias.
Agent Hunt, like any good agent, is living a secret life. To his friends, he is an engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation, spending his days studying boring traffic patterns. He is engaged to a nurse (Michelle Monaghan of Mr. & Mrs. Smith - 2005), who necessarily knows nothing about his other life. A major problem develops when his home life becomes intertwined with his work life, in the worst possible way.
The film’s story line involves the search for and recovery of a “rabbit’s foot”; for Hunt, this rabbit’s foot is very unlucky indeed. His adversary in this enterprise is Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) as Owen Davian, an unscrupulous and notorious black marketeer. Hoffman is so convincing in this villainous and cold-blooded role that one’s perception of him as a man could subconsciously be altered. The perception of him as a very fine actor, however, remains unchanged.
Hunt’s IMF team members consist of Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Alexander - 2004) as Declan, Maggie Quigley (Rush Hour 2 - 2001) as Zhen, and Ving Rhames (Baby Boy - 2001) as Luther. Billy Crudup (Almost Famous - 2000) plays Musgrave, the operative who draws Hunt into this fine mess, and Simon Pegg (Land of the Dead - 2005) plays Dunn, the electronics whiz who helps to get him out. Laurence Fishburne is John Brassel, the take-no-prisoners supervising agent. Although all of the support roles in the film take a back seat to the various explosions and chases, Fishburne in particular makes the most of his limited part.
The movie contains a small measure of the intrigue of the original television series. Certainly it contains just as much action and better special effects. Two things that do appear to be lacking, though, are the intricate planning on the agents’ behalf and the cohesive teamwork of the original force. Somehow, too, the disguises and impersonations do not seem quite as believable as in the original.
The film is a travelogue of sorts, with several scenes taking place in Rome, Italy; in Berlin, Germany; and in Shanghai, China. Some of the scenery is pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, much of it is overshadowed by Hunt’s Spiderman-like antics. Let’s not kid ourselves. The movie is not about Oscar-quality acting, but about peril and risk, about flashy sports cars and exciting speedboats. Maybe it’s even about Tom Cruise. If those things strike your fancy, you can’t go wrong with M:I:3.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
[© 05/07/2006]
A Mini-Review of
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III
By: A. L. “Toni” Anderson
Tom Cruise is back as Impossible Mission Forces agent Ethan Hunt in the 2006 installment of the Mission: Impossible series. He is retired from field work in favor of training recruits, but when his best student (Keri Russell) is captured, he is forced back into the game. The screenplay is written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and J. J. Abrams, and is based on the 1988 television series created by Bruce Geller. The film is directed by J. J. Abrams, creator of television’s Lost and Alias.
Agent Hunt, like any good agent, is living a secret life. To his friends, he is an engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation, spending his days studying boring traffic patterns. He is engaged to a nurse (Michelle Monaghan of Mr. & Mrs. Smith - 2005), who necessarily knows nothing about his other life. A major problem develops when his home life becomes intertwined with his work life, in the worst possible way.
The film’s story line involves the search for and recovery of a “rabbit’s foot”; for Hunt, this rabbit’s foot is very unlucky indeed. His adversary in this enterprise is Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) as Owen Davian, an unscrupulous and notorious black marketeer. Hoffman is so convincing in this villainous and cold-blooded role that one’s perception of him as a man could subconsciously be altered. The perception of him as a very fine actor, however, remains unchanged.
Hunt’s IMF team members consist of Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Alexander - 2004) as Declan, Maggie Quigley (Rush Hour 2 - 2001) as Zhen, and Ving Rhames (Baby Boy - 2001) as Luther. Billy Crudup (Almost Famous - 2000) plays Musgrave, the operative who draws Hunt into this fine mess, and Simon Pegg (Land of the Dead - 2005) plays Dunn, the electronics whiz who helps to get him out. Laurence Fishburne is John Brassel, the take-no-prisoners supervising agent. Although all of the support roles in the film take a back seat to the various explosions and chases, Fishburne in particular makes the most of his limited part.
The movie contains a small measure of the intrigue of the original television series. Certainly it contains just as much action and better special effects. Two things that do appear to be lacking, though, are the intricate planning on the agents’ behalf and the cohesive teamwork of the original force. Somehow, too, the disguises and impersonations do not seem quite as believable as in the original.
The film is a travelogue of sorts, with several scenes taking place in Rome, Italy; in Berlin, Germany; and in Shanghai, China. Some of the scenery is pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, much of it is overshadowed by Hunt’s Spiderman-like antics. Let’s not kid ourselves. The movie is not about Oscar-quality acting, but about peril and risk, about flashy sports cars and exciting speedboats. Maybe it’s even about Tom Cruise. If those things strike your fancy, you can’t go wrong with M:I:3.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
[© 05/07/2006]
Labels: film, Mission: Impossible III, movies, review, Tom Cruise
posted by A. L. "Toni" Anderson @ 10:06 PM
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