Finally a Mission that Doesn't fall flat!

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2007)

After the very awful Mission Impossible in 1996 and then the sub standard Mission Impossible 2002 i believed that there would be forever a string of bad James Bond and Bourne Identity wannabe's starring Tom Cruise and the name Mission Impossible.
Yet somehow Mission Impossible 3 has quickly proved that there is some life, a new and exciting one at that in this world of IMF (Impossible Mission Force) The film written by Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and J.J. Abrams who also directed bring a new flare to Etahn Hunt that we have not seen before.
When we begin the film we see Hunt now much more of a family man and ready to commit to marriage, and yet the job quickly comes before it all when Billy Crudup's character asks Ethan to go and find and retrieve an IMF agent who has been captured by Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) Hunt accepts and with his old friend Luther (Ving Rhames) and two new recruits Maggie Q and Jonathon Rhys Meyers they set off to find the hostage.
Que big explosions, guns fights and that certain look on Tom Cruises face and we have a big action piece, including a helicopter chase through a large field of wind turbines which results in the bad guys chopper quickly being brought down. However the hostage dies and now Hunt wants revenge, he wants Davian.
The film moves with quite some pace and yet somehow still feels like a long film indeed, its quite amazing to think that this film is as long and how it moves so fast. The direction by J.J. Abrams is brilliant and gives something to what was already a tiered series after two films, he brings a certain something which ups just about everything in the film.
Now the stand out performance in this film certainly has to be Hoffman who delivers a very evil performance, the best villain by far in this series and i wouldn't be surprised if the Bond guys look to him in the future! He is evil and so charming in the short amount of time he has on screen, he is truly brilliant! Cruise is also on top form giving his best performance as Hunt, he delivers something more this time around a much more caring Ethan Hunt something that was missing before. While Cruise delivers a wholly better performance its still somehow very difficult to watch him act, in places he seems to fall flat while in others he wins hands down, its a mixed bag with him.
Action i hear you say? Well this film has plenty, the film is filled with big guns, big action and just everything big. There are a few big set pieces that literally make this film go with a bang. The entire Vatican sequence was simply amazing and really credible, the explosion on the bridge was fantastic and didn't seem to drag, and the building to building jump was jaw dropping. All the sequences have a certain something, they were certainly the most credible stuff the franchise has done and certainly make this film worth the watch to ask how in the hell did they do that? Abrams is a true master of what he does here, if this film is anything to go by then we have no fear about his future as a director. He shows a great vision as a director and a true artist and gives a visual flare missing from the previous missions.
Overall this is a great film featuring some of the best stunts of the series, the best villain of the series, in fact best everything of the series. If you were somehow and god knows how impressed by any of the two previous installments then this film should flash Oscar in your eyes. Descent performances all around mean for a great popcorn film not seen in the cinemas or on screen for quite some time.
This review will self destruct in five seconds....
******* out of **********