Finally, (Alias: The Movie) !

Rating: 7/10 (19 August 2009)

So this is the third movie already based on one of the most errant TV shows in the movies' world. I believe it has nothing to do with the previous 2 movies. The first one was Brian DePalma' spy piece where the hero was framed, the good old Jim of the original series was a traitorous, and there were couple of action scenes. The second one was John Woo's action bomb where he got to explode everything and anything in our faces, for the sake of making absurd Bond out of, yes, Tom Cruise! Now, it's J.J. Abrams's Alias. And it has the best of the past 2 movies, and nearly none of their problems.
It was a smart move when they brought Abrams to write and direct. The distinct thing about Abrams's work back in his famous TV show Alias (2001-2006) is his brilliant combination of sci-fi, action, thrill, espionage and the saturated dramatic lines as well. He mixed Bond, Mission: Impossible, with the old classic soap operas all in one. Here, with Alias's writing buddies Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, he did what he does best. I loved that he was the first to handle the franchise, and be that loyal to the too memorable music tracks that Lalo Schifrin wrote for the original TV show; it's like "This is dedicated to the TV series' lovers".
It's breathless and twisty, but with few weak points. Don't ask where the English girl, that Cruise lived such a *mythical* love story with in part 2, had gone! As this is a whole new ballgame. And I won't make game of it, because Cruise here loved the one that deserved the marriage. What did bother was elsewhere.
It's Bond more than anything. True that the "team" is more present this time, however as nearly ghosts. At one moment, we'd be about knowing them; and I mean the scene in the car about the prayer of the lost cat. But sorry. Cruise, or Abrams, had to interrupt with big matters. The matters that bring the money! Though, this is the most MI movie to date. The entire movie is shot in close-ups; the old TV habits die hard I suppose. It lacks some dazzling long shots to intense the cinematic feel, so people would go to watch something else what they watch in 24.
Then, the movie's top problem: The third act. It's not related to the quality, the coherence, or the strength of the first 2 acts. From the moment of capturing Cruise in China, till the happy end; I wasn't happy at all. It's close to the final acts that ruined fine movies before. For instance: Why the CIA's disloyal agent is that craving to know what was in the message of Cruise's murdered agent?!, why all the trouble to make a mask for Cruise's wife, put it on someone's else face, then BANG?!, and most of all: Where is the climax?!
After loud pretty action sequences, we land on a very pale disappointing climax? I think Abrams knows well that after charismatic missions like freeing Cruise's apprentice, kidnapping the arm dealer, stealing the rabbit foot--it's rejected to finish shortly with something that doesn't top or equal its prior. It takes only the head's bomb, which's a very easy way to get rid of THE BAD GUYS! How to fight powerful enemies by machine guns, helicopters and other more sophisticated stuff, in lands, skies and tunnels, then beat them all in just 2 minutes in a room by fistfight and one bullet?!! This is what uneven, deficient, and unsatisfied is all about. And I suspect that this was the reason why the box office's profit wasn't spectacular!
The roller-coaster pace was ideal for this kind of fares. Yes, dear Tommy is short, close to idiot, and unbelievable as action lead, but here you have absolutely NO TIME to complain about that, or remember it much (thus there is no slow-mo, nor doves, this round as well!). There are some classic moments: the delaying of the phony voice of the disguised Cruise in the bathroom. Giving the CIA "We're Family" song as the cherry over the tart of Cruise's escaping. "It's complicated" which is a wicked funny line; it can really summarize Abrams's winning formula in writing when it comes to Alias and Lost. And the rabbit foot, as the thing that everybody wants and doesn't reveal its reality, was a nice sneer from the movie-makers at themselves, because nobody actually cares about this stuff, just the action around it, otherwise the writers have had it with creating similar stuff for every episode of Alias, so leaving it unnamed seemed like a good idea!
It is Alias: The Movie. Not merely by many references through the start; with home party, sending for the agent by false phone call, the secret meeting in a supermarket, and even the cameo of Greg Grunberg "Alias's Weiss"!, as we still have: A raw agent, a man this time, who clashes with the superiors. A mole in the intelligence. A genius stumbling cute technician (British this time). An agent who hides his real identity on his dearest ones. Playing "around the world in 80 seconds" and getting away with it! The tension between love and work. And the insisting on building a family as the sole balance that saves any human being.
I pitied Alias's team, when would it be for them to have their movie??? Maybe after 30 years as the original Mission: Impossible TV show had been treated! But anyhow, some of Alias's spirit finally had been immortalized in a movie. They should put MI3 with Alias's DVD package as bonus!