An enjoyable action flick

Rating: 8/10 (3 June 2006)

The summer blockbuster season kicks off with Mission Impossible 3, an explosive sequel. Tom Cruise is back as Impossible Mission Force operative Ethan Hunt. Agent Hunt is getting a little older and is now a matured man setting forth with the mission of making a family. Early on we see him mingle with guests at a pre-wedding get together, but he still deploys the classic cover of having a fictional occupation. However, he is quickly thrown back into active field duty along with series long cohort Luther played by Vingh Rhames. This leads Hunt into a series of plot twists that have him trying to recover a mysterious item know as "the rabbit's foot" in order to save his new girl.
In this latest installment director JJ Abrams uses a new device as a means to separate this episode. Unlike the first two, Mission: Impossible III gives Hunt a valuable fancy gadget: dependable people. It is refreshing to see characters that are useful and can grow on us. No longer are Ethan and Luther the only guaranteed-not-to die characters. The two veterans are complemented by shallow backgroundless characters played by Maggie Q and John Rhys Meyers. Since much of the story deals with Ethan's personal life, it would only slow down the film to give these new characters a family and depth. Instead of going this route, these two serve up laughs and because of this there is no subtraction.
There are various stunts in this film. Cruise takes credit for doing all of his own stunts and Abrams shoots each to show the audience the truth: he isn't lying. Cruise manages to jump from a skyscraper with a thin cord and no safety net in a glorious uncut crane shot. This is followed by a parachute sequence of computer-generated work, but at least there is no stunt double. Cruise even stands close to explosions while a wired harness flings him into a Dodge Intrepid. It sure feels good to know that there is a rich movie star that wants to lay it on the line.
As much as he Cruise tries, the zingers are the real stars. The crafty lines cannot be easily counted in one viewing. My favorite exchange was when Hunt disguised as Davian is approached by fellow agent Zhen. She is apologizing to him in front of his (Davian's) bodyguards for the red wine she spilled on his shirt. She then speaks a language that his translator picks up and relays to both him and the audience. She tells of how her hotel offers a dry cleaning service and that she'll take care of the mess. He then replies: "What are we going to do in your hotel room with my shirt off?" This is followed by her reply, to which the translator says: "She'll think of something." This soon to be classic gets Hunt away from the guards and allows for a fake assignation of Davian.
It is welcoming to have an action flick with an element of confusion. For instance Philip Seymour Hoffman's Davian is marketed as the bad guy, but he isn't the only one. A cloud of suspicion is placed over just about every character. I like being jerked around to an extent. Abrams knows the right extent to do this; because unlike the first in the series, this one ends with the viewer aware of each characters side.
The most intriguing aspect of the Mission Impossible universe is a device that crafts faces. Each time we are presented a situation we must determine whether or not what we are seeing is real. When Ethan's wife Julia is shot point blank; I was shocked. I thought that maybe this film is challenging the Hollywood narrative. Soon after this event my hopes were dashed as we discover the use of the infamous face maker. I'm not saying that the film needed to be misogynistic, but it would have been something as clever as the zingers.