Big & Loud. Dumb & Dumberer.

Rating: 3/10 (7 June 2006)

This is a big loud action film with a script that would have fitted a b-grade action flick back in the late 80's, or maybe an old Jackie Chan movie, but is a joke for a 2006 film costing $150million. The only fun I had was laughing at parts of it with my partner (something I haven't done since seeing Swimfan a few years ago). Apart from the at times annoying action sequences (all noise and jerky cameras), the script was a constant stream of unbelievable and frustrating action-movie clichés. This might have still been okay if it hadn't been delivered so humourlessly. The old Roger Moore James Bond films were pretty silly - but at least they were fun!
SPOILER ALERT!!!>>>> Why was Tom's wife so willing to rush into marriage with him knowing he has major secrets - is she really that dumb (or are we expected to not question why any woman would jump into marriage with Mr Cruise because plenty of actresses do so in real life)? Why would Tom be happy to marry someone while lying about the job he goes to each day and NOT appear to feel even slightly guilty about it (because he's a jerk perhaps?)? Why are America's top agents willing to hand over to the bad guy something which for all they know may become the world's ultimate terrorist weapon for the sake of one hostage, relying on the hope that they can get it back later (if Ethan Hunt is that susceptible to pressure maybe he shouldn't be an agent - and maybe he really should have given the marriage thing a bit more thought in the first place)? Was it really necessary for his wife to end up looking EXACTLY like an 80's action-flick-chick at the climax, wearing the obligatory sweaty tight top and gaining unbeatable gun skills after 5 seconds (literally) of instruction? And considering hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake, and that a small army was employed to organise the attack on the bridge, you'd think Philip Seymour Hoffman could have afforded better security to stop Tom escaping and saving his wife at the end (more than two men to guard her would have been a good start). And personally I found all the 'I'm going to kill you in front of your wife' 'no, I'm going to kill your wife in front of you' 'no, I think I'm going to change my mind again...' an obnoxiously cheap attempt at getting us to care about their fate, when nothing else in the picture made us warm to their relationship anyway. Frankly by the end I could have done with Ethan out of the picture completely. The old Mission Impossible used to be about a team, not a singular agent. If Ethan could be killed off, we could get back to that!
In MI1, Tom's fellow agents were mostly bumped off in the first 15 minutes, giving the film a reasonable excuse to focus on the old Cruiser for the rest of the running time. Here in MI3 Tom has 3 spunky fellow agents who could have been fun to watch operating together as a team of equals. Instead they seem to spend most of their time driving Tom from one of his stunt scenes to the next! How many Tom close-ups do we really need? This on screen self-love is especially irksome considering the star's egocentricities off screen these days. Give it a rest.
I won't give it 1 star - I'll give it 3 for some splashy visuals, which might keep you happy if you don't expect any more than that from your action flicks and are happy to have your intelligence insulted. And at least it wasn't as bad as the Matrix sequels (which also starred Laurence Fishbourne, hmmmmm.....).