A fun summer experience

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2006)

Ethan Hunt is back and in full force. We start of with him having retreated from active field duty and has committed himself to training new agents. But after a former pupil of his gets kidnapped by international arms dealer Owen Davian (Hoffman), he gets back in the game to bring him down and on his way goes to such places as the Vatican and Shanghai.
The first Mission:Impossible was a classic, the second an adrenaline driven disappointment with the Cruise being the only superhero. This film however manages to capture the best aspects of both of those films and combine them into enjoyable flick.
The story is there but it doesn't take center stage in this one, a thing that somewhat disappointed me since they could have really done better in that department, but instead it focuses on the characters, a thing that writer/director J.J Abrams (Lost, Alias) is best at. In addition to showing a more human side to super agent Ethan Hunt and giving us an overview of his personal life, there is a great supporting cast and above all, Hunt works as a part of a team and not just solo. In addition to Ving Rhames coming back for a third time around, the film also boasts Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as members of Hunt's IMF team. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the bad guy and what a bad guy this is. He doesn't care if he's about to die but remains calm all the time and manages to make threats even when facing death itself while at the same time, not being too over the top. Laurence Fishburne plays the bureaucrat boss of Hunt and he too fits his role well. But the real treat is a small, almost cameo like role from Simon Pegg. He plays a lab technician at IMF headquarters and even though his screen time is limited, he manages to crank out some of the wittiest sentences ever put onto celluloid. Overall, this film has more emphasis on comedy than the previous two but it never goes too far or gets annoying. Though one thing that did bother me a bit was how they deviated a bit too far from realism with all the spy stuff, thereby making everything seem so easy and not too challenging for the participants.
This is JJ Abrams's debut film (and the most expensive directorial debut in history) and he handles the big job well, if this were another episode of one of his TV shows. As one would expect from a film like this, there are several big action set pieces such as a helicopter chase in a wind park, an aerial attack on a convoy of vehicles and a high speed pursuit through the streets of Shanghai, in addition to various shootouts and other cool stunts. Well, the action was awesome but as I mentioned before, if this was a TV show. I remember watching this documentary on the making of the pilot for Lost and there is this one running scene that was done by doing a closeup of the actors faces and then having them jump up and down in one spot but then when shown on the big screen, it looks like running. That is exactly what this film felt like. The action is very quick cut, everything is shot with shaky zoomed in closeups and the technique of shooting the action at low frame rates whereby things seem faster and more chaotic than they actually are, all kept reminding me of yet another episode of some TV show. They could at least let us enjoy the beauty of the action (and it isn't like they had budget constraints, the very thing that makes TV action scenes seem the way they are). Overall, Daniel Mindel's camera-work was competent and there were some cool shots here and there but overall, nothing that special. The soundtrack, done by Michael Giacchio, fits the film perfectly and at times reminds of his score for Lost.
Overall, a very entertaining film, even with its slight drawbacks.