Third time's the charm

Rating: 9/10 (29 August 2016)

The third time's the charm for Tom Cruise in this excellent action flick which blows all the rubbishy memories of WAR OF THE WORLDS away and proves that he's still rightfully the world's biggest star. Easily eclipsing the previous two movies in the series (with the first one's over confusing plot and the second's lack of it), this movie delivers one blistering action sequence after another, getting better and better as it goes along, before finishing with a powerhouse climax that'll have you pounding on the arms of your chair!
Cruise slips into his character of the hero (after his hit-man role in COLLATERAL) with ease and is goofily likable. It's good to see that the charismatic Ving Rhames is back as Luther, while there's a whole new cast list full of kick-ass female characters, a sinister Laurence Fishburne, a funny Simon Pegg, and a truly evil Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain. The action set-pieces are superbly handled by J.J. Abrams, especially the attack on the bridge (shades of TRUE LIES) which is phenomenal and takes special effects to new levels. The other shoot-outs and various infiltrations are great, the tension off set by genuinely funny one-liners (the humpty-dumpty line still cracks me up) and to say more is to spoil it. All I can say is that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III is one of my favourite action thrillers of the 2000s, is undoubtedly the film of the year, and everybody should make an effort to see it!