Cruise Control slips into third gear

Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2006)

Ooooh scary  and that's just Tommy's collection of teeth. There simply must be a scene with Tom (from Tom & Jerry) playing them like a clavichord after the Cruiser gets biffed with a frying pan.
But I digress Following the first MI, dumber US teenagers, who appear to be the staple of Hollywood screen tests, complained that the plot left them confused. Poor loves! And so MI:II was born: simple plot (Face Off, for teletubbies); premise summaries every five minutes (in case you've got bladder problems or are trying to watch the film and play Grand Theft Auto) and a director whose reputation for brooding cogitations on the dynamics of the human psyche fell somewhat short of, say, Tony Scott.
Fortunately MI:III is a definite improvement on John "Hard Boiled" Woo's bewildering (if impressive) collection of clichés and personal leitmotifs. It starts, oooh, dark; it messes around with a non-linear storyline (well, almost); it's got something more than a comedy villain in the fantastically sadistic Philip Seymour Hoffman; and overall it could just about pass as a decent, if slightly bonkers, spy thrillerexcept
there are many, many jarring and incongruous moments in the film.
Take for example the opening sequence. Excellent acting, some wonderful (if brief) suspense building up to an emotive final gunshot. Screen goes blank, cue jaunty opening theme. Hmmm. Don't get me wrong, the opening scene is a cracker, and the theme tune is necessary. But put them together and it just doesn't work.
The film is full of these mistakes. Take, for example, the comedy. Used wisely, comedy can lighten the mood, allow an audience to draw breath, and generally introduce some dynamic range. Done badly, however, and it jars painfully with the rest of the material. In MI:III it is done badly. In fact Ethan Hunt's mood changes quicker than a hormonal, sofa-jumping celeb on Oprah. One moment he's ruthless, single-minded and driven, and the next he's cracking a joke.
While we're on the subject of life mirroring art, why is Ethan's wife a spitting image of whats-her-face the bland one from Dawson's Creek? The Cruiser is a great actor (if a bit lazy recently) but, frankly, I could have done without this forcible reminder of his freakshow of a personal life. We paid to see Ethan Hunt, not Tommy K.
Finally, there's the valedictory last scene. You know the one you get on American Soap re-union specials: Cheers, for example, where they all stand around and wave? Yeah, it was that horrible. Not as horrible as the end of The House of Flying Daggers, but Not Good.
Which is a shame, because it's a jolly entertaining piece of cinema when it's not buggering it up for the sake of "humour" and/or sentimentality. MI films are never going to be cerebral, and I thoroughly enjoyed it when I wasn't scaring the natives of West India Quay, E14 by slapping my forehead and screaming Noooooo! in a very loud voice. Tom slipped briefly out of Cruise Control and into 3rd. Big Phil alone justifies the price of admission. I don't think I recall seeing anyone in a mainstream movie so thoroughly and believably vile. Good film. Go and see it. Take a sick bag for the ending.
Oh yes, and (spoilers) waking up from being dead is not the same as waking up from a bad dream. Please can you remember that for next time? I laughed. I know I wasn't supposed to, but I did.