SYNOPSIS

Tom Cruise, the most exciting and successful star in the world, returns to one of his signature roles, Secret Agent Ethan Hunt, in “Mission: Impossible III.” In this pulse-racing, mind-bending action thriller, Hunt confronts the toughest villain he’s ever faced --– Owen Davian (Academy Award® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman), an international weapons and information provider with no remorse and no conscience.
The film is co-written and directed by J.J. Abrams, who brings his unique blend of action, character, comedy, and drama to the franchise. The millions of loyal viewers of Abrams’s landmark creations, the television series “Lost” and “Alias,” know what to expect: an enthralling, intricate story with an unexpected and arresting payoff that satisfies on every level.

With “M:i:III,” Abrams and Cruise turn the spy thriller on its ear as they hark back to the best aspects of the original TV series that inspired the films – a well-connected team of agents centered around a bold and heroic leader, the most exciting action stunts imaginable, and elaborate twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. “M:i:III” is the action movie audiences have been waiting for.

Review by
MAURICE BROADDUS

The official summer blockbuster movie season has begun. While it’s been a long time since MI:2, it’s only a short time for our intrepid hero, Ethan Hunt (the bad-press belabored Tom Cruise) and the stakes of the spy game movie have been raised in this post-24, post-Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and post-Bourne Identity/Supremacy world. This director’s franchise was in need of reinventing itself after the convoluted plot of the first (Brian DePalma) and the too reminiscent of a James Bond feel of the second (John Woo) - so in the rare Hollywood brilliant move, Cruise tapped J.J. Abrams (Lost) to helm the reinvention.

Abrams, who directed and co-wrote MI:3, has his fingerprints all over this movie. As the creator of Alias, he can stage exciting spy sequences with the best of them. For good or for ill, MI:3 has many of Alias’ rhythms, from the use of the J.J. Abrams' favorite players [Keri Russell (Felicity), Greg Grunberg (Alias)] to poaching a character from the show and stopping short of naming him Marshall. However, a trait of his work is that Abrams’ stories have always been about relationships as much as anything else.

Ving Rhames (playing Luther) gets a little more screen time, once again making the most from a small role and the only strand of consistency in the Mission Impossible franchise besides Cruise. Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix Trilogy, King of New York) is a welcome addition as the man in charge of IMF. By the way, let me squeeze in a word on Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davian. It is easy for a good actor to be handed the uber-villain role and give a hammy performance that would make William Shatner oink. Yet he plays his no-nonsense villain with a cool aplomb that makes him all the more terrifying. On the surface, the movie is little more than an excuse to set up non-stop action scenes, yet there is another story that lays within this movie.

“What I see in Julia is life before all of this. And it is good.” –Ethan Hunt

This is a story as old as creation itself. What the spy genre does so cleverly is remind us is that we all lead double lives. On the surface, we lead relatively normal lives, going through the day to day mundane motions of whatever job we have, even ordinary ones like Ethan Hunt’s faux day job of being a highway traffic control engineer. However, life has a way of bringing about a crisis that forces us to reflect on the fact that we aren’t who we think we are and we aren’t what we were meant to be.

“A dishonesty that poisons everything.” –Luther

This fundamental lie to our existence reveals itself in several ways. It can disrupt relationships, as Ethan’s wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), has her life hanging in the balance due to his secret life. Without giving away any of the (tired) twists and turns that we’ve come to expect from this franchise, his colleagues suffer due to betrayals stemming from an “ends justify the means” expediency that serves to remind us of the reality that when you collaborate with corruption, you get corrupted.

The impossible mission this time around focuses on securing the “Rabbit’s Foot,” a MacGuffin if ever there was one. In this case, the Rabbit’s Foot is supposed to represent a type of anti-God: technology capable of anti-creation, real “end of the world stuff.” (Sadly, also reminiscent of the Rimbaldi mythology that permeates the show Alias). So, once again, Ethan Hunt finds himself in the unenviable position of pursuing objects he doesn’t quite understand, unable to trust anyone.

“But you’ve got to do what’s right. What you know to be right.” –Ethan Hunt

“A normal relationship is enviable for people like us.” says Luther. Just as we can often sense that things aren’t as they were meant to be, we also sense that there is a way to make things right, to make things whole again. That there is a better way for us to live. As Julia’s sister points out “this is about starting a new family.” MI:3 is billed and centers around Tom Cruise’s character, yet the premise is about a team, sometimes that team learning how to be a team. In the end, they are Ethan Hunt’s family every bit as much as Julia is - sometimes, it’s a matter of finding the right family to be adopted into.

“Just a prayer I say to bring it home.” –Zheng (Maggie Q)

In the end, no matter how impossible the mission, the goal is to come home. To reclaim a semblance of normalcy in one’s day-to-day living. Ethan Hunt can’t be a spy 24/7 and MI:3 explores what that life, or the desire for that “normal” life, might look like for him. The plot for MI:3 is serviceable, with a certain amount of heart and light romance holding it together. Still, if all you want is mindless, non-stop action, you'll be well served. There is a ballet-like movement to the choreographed mayhem. If The Sentinel was like a bad episode of 24, then MI:3 is like a good episode of Alias. Have fun.