Creaky and labored

Rating: 4/10 (13 May 2006)

Spoiler alert It takes about 2 seconds after seeing the good guys and bad guys pair up for you to figure out who the real bad guy is who is setting Ethan Hunt up for failure. And while Owen Davian gets away, it would have been more interesting for John Musgrave to get away instead, and perhaps even to make him less "revealed" as to add to the suspense for the next movie.
What made the movie fail for me was to have Musgrave commit the cardinal rule of criminals in movies: they explain to the guy they want to kill what their motives are for evil; when the good guy gets away and then kills the bad guy, it all makes sense. Musgrave's reason for setting up Hunt? He (Musgrave) is against affirmative action, and as John Brassel is black, it's all a plot to discredit Brassel so the whiteys can get back in power. At least, that's about the most coherent thing I could make of it.
If that 2 minute scene were either rewritten or dropped, it would have made the movie much more interesting. But just as MI2 had the ludicrous "we want stock options!" for the bad guys, MI3 fails due to this completely pathetic reasoning for Musgrave. I mean, evil people don't get ahead in life because they're stupid. They get ahead because they're smart. And this is just not smart.