Better stay away from this movie

Rating: 4/10 (8 May 2006)

This movie was slightly creepy, for various reasons. But more about this later.
First of all, I really enjoyed the first M:I movie, and couldn't bear watching the John Woo sequel. So, with a free ticket in my hand and some pals coming along with me, I decided to go and see the third installment.
The original score by Lolo Schiffrin has been so mutilated, they had better used the them song from the 60ies TV show. Anyhoo, here's the plot: The first act is tremendously poor. Who on Earth would have Germans hired as killers and assassins these days? Maybe the writers thought it as just plain cool, which it isn't. But this wasn't the only supposedly "cool thing" in the movie. Of course, you blow up your own truck with all the unused equipment in it... Germany is displayed very, very convincingly (a dark industrial surrounding that could be anywhere in the Western World and sure;y there are wind power plants just outside of Berlin... LOL).
The scenes at the apartment and at the MIF basis are very, very cheesy and I wonder whether personal insight's into a secret agent's life couldn't have been portrayed a tad bit more strained and dark. This is a film about secret agents, not some wishy-washy bubbly soap-opera, for sheep's sake.
The musical score is annoying. It's this generic soundtrack that has been used so many times before. They probably thought it would help enhance the storyline, but where there is no storyline, it appears as if they had to cover up lengthy and faulty scenes and sequences by using this fake orchestra kind of score.
Not a single character is drawn out, they all remain soulless, without a proper motive (apart from Hoffman's, whose aim is absolute cruelty and - later on - perfect retaliation). Only Ethan Hunt stands out as a sort of "Ubermensch" who doesn't even catch a single scratch after a drone has just blown up a piece of the road. An explosion smashes him into a parked car... No injuries, he stands up and walks on... Very realistic.
Then they give so much away. The scene inside the plane, after they've successfully kidnapped Hoffman's character. Rhames yells "Ethan" about six times to Cruise. As if professional agents would call each other by name. Sure, that's an easy thing for the weapons dealer to count one and one together. Then the scene outside Vatican City when Cruise and his ally fake an "Italian Conversation". Aaaarghh... So much for clichés... Then seeing Cruise in a ministrel's robe... Made me laugh... And think of Cruise's past as a choirboy. What an irony. Of course, nobody seems to question a foreigner entering the center of the Catholic Church. Then the Germans appear again, later on at the bridge (somewhere in... California? Or Florida?). No idea, where the scriptwriters could imagine some KSK 9 guys show up in a helicopter somewhere in the States, in open water, without causing any noise or troubles... Logical reasoning, where have you gone?
The only thing that really stood out in my viewer's experience was Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he probably was the reason why I originally wanted to see this flick. He's so damn cold and emotionless, yet he's able to play this really convincingly.
Isn't this the irony when you look at Tom Cruise's facial expressions, repeating themselves in every single movie he makes. The way he fakes a smile, the way he tries to put on a stone-cold, serious face... Look at "Top Gun", "Days Of Thunder", "Cocktail" or whatever... That's no actor playing a role, that's Cruise playing Cruise. And his eyes are so absent, you'd think he always with Katie Holmes and thinking about some new project that he's about to pull off to show off his greatness. I don't know, but Tom Cruise as an actor is overrated. "Magnolia" maybe the only time where he actually showed a different approach. Otherwise, he often reminds me of a brick wall or a robot.
The use of the "Rabbit's Foot" is an old trick and a nod to Alfred Hitchcock and the "Red Herring" device. Watch "Vertigo" or "Psycho" again, or look it up on a good website for more information.
The creepy thing about this movie is the apparent similarity between Michelle Monaghan and Katie Holmes... The eyes, the shape of the face, the hair, the behaviour. Does this portray Tom Cruise's obsession with his current wife or what? Also, women in this movie are all weak characters, who are essentially losers and incapable of achieving anything successfully (apart from Monaghan's character at the very end). Further proof to that are the dialogues between male and female characters, which usually go like this: (Man) "Trust me." (Woman) "I don't know what to do, I'm confused." (Man) "Promise you trust me." (Woman). "OK." They had better done this movie without Tom Cruise in the main role and with less uberdimensional explosions, less CGI and maybe a storyline.
But then again, it's the wonderful studio system that gives a bleep about the audience and continues pouring out garbage. Eventually, they'll lose their customers pretty fast. It will be too late before they've realized how bored the audience has become with the same standard blockbuster recipe each year... No fire, no compassion, no likable characters (Ethan Hunt's crew is never really introduced), no spirit, no ideas, all just a collage of old film tricks... It's really smelly. And I personally think this movie has a lot more to do with the philosophy of Scientology and Cruise's personal influence as a producer than one would maybe think.