Mission: Impossible III

Easily not the best mission, but thanks to JJ Abrams direction and an absolute menacing performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman this movie is more than deserving of repeat viewings.

J.J. Abrams, creator of Lost, takes on the third instalment of the action franchise, which sees human yo-yo Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in rare human mode as he plans on making an early retirement to be with his nurse wife (Michelle Monaghan), only to be go on another impossible mission as he plans catching sadistic arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). To aid him are Ving Rhames, Jonathon Rhys-Meyers and Maggie Q, and, this being a third, there are gadgets, explosions, sets and plot twists like now other.

You've got to hand it to Abrams – he certainly knows how to keep an audience on their toes. Drawing on a few of his popular plot devices from Lost (flashbacks, a crescendo to the turning point), he sets us up neatly into his little world, where Ethan Hunt is now a man trying to live a normal life. Whilst that scenario may be a hard to buy, this is redeemed by the many action scenes in the film which are each exhilarating. To go into detail would be spoiling it, but let's just say there is an extremely breathtaking sequence involving a fulcrum, an amusing one involving Tom Cruise disguising himself as someone, and lastly, but by no means least a helicopter chase which is utterly awe-inspiring and barely lets the audience pause for breath. All this, and you get a Michael Giacchino score that perfectly blends action, anxiety, fear and anger.

The cast in themselves are a treat. Tom Cruise, though not given the most trying of tasks in playing an action hero, does a good job with his usual intensity. In the action scenes, his facial expressions are concentrated and focused and utterly convincing. However, Cruise fails in having any genuine chemistry with Michelle Monaghan, for and the romance comes across as rather bland. This is not aided with the poor writing in these scenes. Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Maggie Q merely look cool as his helpers, and Laurence Fisburne and Billy Crudup successfully bring that edge of moral ambiguity to their characters. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellently malicious as the elusive and extremely dangerous Davian, shining in his lizard-eyed role and bringing some genuine terror to the villain. His scenes aside Tom Cruise are superb, as they practically tremble in tension and quiet hatred on both characters parts.

You will go to see Mission Impossible III expecting some grand-scale set pieces, and you will not be disappointed here. Each one of the four is masterfully executed, with a breezy slickness that is both cool and exciting. We're talking non-stop action, occasionally interspersed with those corny Hollywood love formulae, cruising as "emotion." Its big, its bombastic, and it could be the Summer blockbuster of the year.

In this third film of the series, Ethan Hunt has retired from the field, and is training new agents…. His sweetheart Julia (Michelle Monaghan) thinks he works for the Department of Transportation…

When one of his pupils is kidnapped by a sadistic arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Hunt decides to assemble his old team to retrieve her, putting in mortal danger his new love…

J.J. Abrams—in his first feature film—shot "Mission: Impossible III" with a sense of timing and suspense… We're dealing with full-flash blanks, glass breaking, explosions… And we see Hunt, in a quite interesting shot, running up a wall to enter the Vatican… Also, in the bridge sequence, he runs away from a rocket hit on one of the vehicles… It's cool because the way he's running, the look on his face, before, during and after that impact could only have been done only by an actor as good as him… In China, in an old fishing village, we see him jumping off tile rooftops, with incredible grace, precision, coordination and footwork… Then, with Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) they jump out of a building on a cable landing on a truck…

The special effects, and visual effects are great… They all work together... The Shanghai street chase with Tom leaning out of the car at some insanely dangerous angle to shoot a gun under a truck; Also Tom, in a high-speed boat, on the Tiber River in Rome, Italy; the blowing of a nice spectacular sports car; and, of course, the helicopter chase sequence where, in pursuit, the bad-guy helicopter emerges out of a fireball…

Also, in a fantastic shot, in Shanghai, China, when the camera comes in and then goes around Tom as he's standing on top of a Shanghai roof… The camera comes over his shoulder and look down at the ground, so we'll see Tom on the top of the Shanghai building, hundreds feet in the air, and just to show and set up the jeopardy of what he's about to accomplish…

Well, I loved the director's work… He's so detail-oriented…The fun, the adventure, the creativity, never eased up…

And, please, don't miss Colleen Atwood, entering the Vatican, with a head-turner red dress

Phillip seymour hoffman is the best villain in this series too.

A very good addition to the series. A great movie after the first one. MI:II is must not be considered an MI movie, but this one here builds the foundation to take the series further. We get an insight of Hunt's life. The driving force of the MI series is Hunt's dilemmas. The movie begins to get into the MI universe with showing us what Hunt is made of and why he chooses what he chooses in the next films. The actions were a plus point, very few overuse of action is encountered. The action were basic nevertheless. But still the movie gives away many of Hunt's super spy skills like lip reading and webslinging across building. Got to say, Hunt is very lucky to survive so many life and death situation.

The acting was on point, the other characters other than Hunt hadn't have any significant challenges in acting considering the calibre of them. Tom Cruise grew as an actor and it showed if his performance from first two filmshas to be considered. I wish the movie was less predictable and avoided the cliches. It's a good movie to pass your time.