In my review for Mission: Impossible II (the very first movie reviewed here at ThreeMovieBuffs.com) I pointed out that Ethan Hunt had become a virtual super-hero with his ability to complete the most difficult tasks and defeat any foe without breaking a sweat or suffering the smallest injury. Well apparently someone at Paramount Pictures was listening because in the latest installment of the series, Mission: Impossible III, Hunt has suddenly become very human indeed. Oh sure, you still know that he will emerge victorious and will still pull off implausible stunts, but this time around it's much more of a struggle for him. This is definitely an improvement and helps make up for the fact that this movie is about twenty minutes too long.
The movie opens with a climactic scene from act three in which the villainous Owen Davian (Hoffman) is holding a gun on Hunt's wife while Hunt is handcuffed to a chair only a few feet away. After an intense exchange of threats, Davian pulls the trigger. Before we see what happens the movie cuts to the opening credits with the distinctive Mission: Impossible theme song, followed by the actual beginning of the story so that we can see how it is that we reached that tension filled confrontation.
As the story opens, Hunt is living a relatively quiet life, now retired from the field he spends his time teaching at the IMF equivalent of the Police Academy. He's even engaged to be married. However, when a former student of his (played by Keri Russell) is kidnapped by evil arms dealer Owen Davian, Hunt joins the mission to rescue her. When the rescue attempt goes awry, Hunt then goes on a mission to seek revenge.
Like the James Bond series, the Mission: Impossible movies generally contain certain set pieces that you expect to see and this installment is no different. There's the glamorous party that must be infiltrated (this time at the Vatican). There's the person who must be impersonated by wearing a voice synthesizer and amazing lifelike rubber mask. And of course there is a highly guarded building that must be penetrated so that something can be stolen. Lastly of course, there is the traitor in IMF that must be unmasked (He's not hard to spot and you'll most likely do so long before Hunt does).
Of course the real point of these movies is to move from one action scene to the next. And while they are well done, after an hour and a half I began to feel satiated with them. Like gorging yourself on your favorite food, it might still taste good but it becomes harder to appreciate. Although to the filmmaker's credit, as I stated, at least this time around the action actually seems to take effort on Hunt's part.
Despite becoming something of a national joke following his Oprah couch jumping antics, Cruise shows once again that he is an actor and not just a celebrity. This isn't Oscar material by any means, and it's hard to separate Hunt from Cruise, but he does manage the action and the drama scenes with equal aplomb. Unfortunately, he does so at the expense of every other actor in the film. Ving Rhames is once again reduced to a very minor supporting role and this time he is joined by Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Simon Pegg. Even Hoffman, who is very effective as the villain despite limited screen time, is so sparsely developed that he makes the average Bond villain look three-dimensional.
As a big summer action flick, Mission: Impossible III delivers the goods. It doesn't break new ground in the genre the way the Bourne series has and nor does it have the classic status of the Bond films, but as mindless entertainment it's certainly enjoyable.
