Boom!

Rating: 7/10 (8 May 2006)

I want JJ Abrams to rot in hell. No, scratch that: I want JJ to rot away in limbo while other members of the Alias production crew rot in hell. But, I'm not here to discuss the season five Alias fiasco. I'm here to discuss, well, Alias: The Movie. Oops, I mean Mission Impossible III.
Months ago, during the height of my Burn JJ at the Stake wrath, I knew MI3 would suck me into the theater because it starred Philip Seymour Hoffman. My Hoffman love affair dates back to my pre-teenage years. Growing up I wanted to be his Lester Bangs. To this day, he's my favorite actor. I cannot resist a film with him in it, even if it stars Tom Cruise and JJ Abrams directed it.
Today I succumbed. I shelled out fifteen dollars (ticket, coke, and chocolate covered raisins) to see The Man. OH, I was not disappointed. The hype and critic reviews nailed it: this film is all boom, and all Hoffman. Fine with me. The film opens on Tom Cruise's battered face, and Hoffman's cool, sadistic voice demanding Cruise give him the "rabbit foot" or he'll kill Cruise's pretty little wife. Hoffman delivers his lines with conviction and menace; he's a bored sociopath. He's delicious and alluring. I felt giddy watching him taunt Cruise's Hunt. You catch your breath when he appears on screen  which is not nearly enough.
The rest of the flick  this really isn't a film, more an elaborate (and expensively) staged action sequence that lasts two hours  is a showy, loud, over-directed escapist rip off of JJ Abrams's 'Truth Be Told' (the pilot episode of 'Alias'). Question: can you sue yourself for plagiarism? If you know the plot of 'Truth Be Told', you know the plot of MI3. There is not a scene, not a shot, not a character, that he did not "sample" from Alias. Thankfully, Jennifer Garner is nowhere in sight. When Marshall appeared on screen, I yelled: why didn't you just cast Kevin Weisman and be done with it, Jesus! If it wasn't for Philip Seymour Hoffman and a spectacular action sequence on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, I might have hated this flick. I walked out with the polar opposite reaction: I relished in its outrageousness and chutzpah. It had nothing to say, and said it with such flare and jazz. The actors and characters are merely devices for more boom. Again, fine with me; the boom entertains like woah.