MI: 3 Completes the Trifecta

Rating: 4/10 (3 May 2006)

I caught a special advance screening of MI:3 last night. Some rough impressions: After starting off fast, the movie's pace is uneven for the remainder of the first hour, before finally paying off in hour two. The quality of the performances varies. Ving Rhames, Lawrence Fishburne, and Simon Pegg are excellent in supporting roles. Michelle Monaghan and Billy Crudup are less convincing. Tom Cruise gives a typical Cruise performance. I didn't really like Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain Owen Davian.
In the wake of Brian DePalma (M:I) and John Woo (M:I2), J.J. Abrams relative lack of experience as a film director is apparent. Too much of the film is shot as if it were a TV show, focusing on tight facial close-ups even when it might have been better to show the characters in space. There's seems also--to my tastes--to have been an over-reliance on hand-held cameras.
Much of the action, however, is impressively staged, if not particularly original. The plot, too, while twisty and at least as good as that of M:I2, is not up to the standard of the original film. I felt that Abrams never got out of his established "Alias" comfort zone here. The screenplay was co-written by Abrams and two frequent contributors to that series, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Again, while mildly entertaining, I felt that the story might have benefited from the perspective of a writer outside of Abrams' circle.