Pure adrenaline from start to finish!

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2006)

"Who are you? Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? Whoever she is, I'm gonna find her. I'm gonna hurt her. And then I'm going to kill you, right in front of her." These lines, spoken by Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) at the beginning of the trailer, gave plenty of people the creeps, suggesting J.J.Abrams, the man behind Alias (whose narrative structure is echoed here) and Lost, was the right choice to direct Mission:Impossible III (and this is his feature debut). Here we had what looked like an action flick where the talky bits are exactly as important as the explosions. The actual movie is everything fans hoped for, the best in the trilogy, an exciting adventure in which style and content are present in equal quantities.
Abrams makes the film more emotional than its predecessors, thanks to his choice to answer this question: what if you work for a top secret government agency (in this case, IMF), and your enemies decide to get at you through your unknowing loved ones? This situation caused Sidney Bristow, the protagonist of Alias, quite some trouble. And the same trouble is waiting for Ethan Hunt, who is once again dragged into action (this time, the self-destructing message is inside a camera). What seemed like an ordinary rescue mission (his former student, played by Keri Russell, has been kidnapped) becomes something much, much bigger, as Ethan and his team (veteran Ving Rhames and first-timers Maggie Q. and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, whose accent weirdly shifts from American to Cockney to Irish, depending on the section of the film) cross paths with the aforementioned Davian, a ruthless arms dealer who, after being arrested (his chilling "do you have a wife?" speech is pronounced during the interrogation), manages to escape, in the breathtaking Chesapeake Bay Bridge scene, and blackmails Hunt: if he can't find the Rabbit's Foot in 48 hours, his wife Julie (Michelle Monaghan) will die. Difficult times lie ahead...
From Berlin to Rome to Shanghai, M:I:III is an unstoppable race against the clock, spiced up by clever dialogue and layered, compelling characters. In fact, we get to take a proper look at the IMF headquarters and some of the important people who work there, particularly the strict, but hard-working boss (Laurence Fishburne), the reliable handler (Billy Crudup) and the hilarious tech adviser, played by the priceless Simon Pegg as the British version of Alias' Marshall Flinkman. And finally, a villain worth the definition. Hoffman already stole the show in the trailer, and he virtually dominates the whole film with controlled but frightening brutality. He's arguably the scariest and most interesting adversary Ethan hunt has ever faced.
With his feature debut, Abrams has successfully redeemed the M:I franchise, after John Woo's disappointing second installment, delivering an almost perfect picture (the movie goes a bit downhill during the last 20 minutes). He has brought the genre to the next level and the good news is, he's barely started.