Not great, but not terrible.

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2006)

It's hard to imagine that ten years after the release of Mission: Impossible there was any consideration in making two other installments to the series. But what kind of expectations can you expect out of the third installment of non-trilogy story-line? An excuse to make a couple of bucks the easiest way possible. The movie debut of J.J. Abrams (co-creator of TV's Lost) is impressive, but nothing worthwhile. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds) is starting a new life with his fiancé Julia (Michelle Monaghan, North Country) and trying to end his career in the IMF agency when an unexpected call from a former employer of Hunt's needs him on a mission to rescue a former apprentice of Hunts whose been held hostage by powerful terrorist weapon dealer Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Capote). The mission to save his former student Lindsey Ferris (Keri Russell, We Were Soldiers) failed and because of his failure, Hunt feels the heat from his supervisor (Laurence Fishburne, Assault on Precinct 13). In order to prove that he's not the failing type, Hunt goes and tries to capture Davian, in which has been considered an impossible mission for the IMF. Meanwhile his special force team begins nagging on him that he shouldn't have gotten involved in a relationship, fearing for the life of his fiancé (now wife) and for himself. Sure enough, after his capture, viciously threatens to kill Julia, after he escapes from the hands of Hunt. Davian is then rescued by his terrorist forces and proceeds to capture Julia. The only way for Hunt to get his wife back is to apprehend a nuclear 'doomsday' device called the 'Rabbit Foot' for Davian. With the mentality that ever loving husband should have for his wife, he applies to every demand of Davian. The film then falls in the direction of saving the girl on the tied down to the train tracks by a diabolical villain. But the main excuse for this film to show how many stunts Tom Cruise can do on his own and live to tell about it. The camera is used for a lot of crane shots and lets the audience follow the action with their own eyes rather than have the camera do it for them. The scene on the bridge when Hunt is running from a missile aimed at the car behind him and the explosion impact throws his whole body in to the car next to him all in one shot is visually impressive. For the editing, I did notice some tricks that they used to switch out actors for the untrained eye. When the camera rotates around Hunt disguising himself as Davian, there is an obvious change from Cruise to Hoffman. Nothing to impressive, but it did seem like the camera made an emphasis on eyes. There are several uses of surveillance cameras, binoculars, picture cameras, close up on what actors eyes staring down each other, and the most impressive when a dead corpse has a sever case of being cross eyed. It shows a fear that someone is always watching you, but if caught in a stare down, your eyes can be dangerously altered. The film's traditional Mission Impossible theme composed by Lalo Schifrin had several different arrangements to express the emotion and action through out the films entirety. I didn't really have to think about it. The film seemed to revolve more around the action sequences then the heist format the Mission Impossible series started off with. There are several homage's to the first films ideals, such as repelling from a steep drop off and the use of rubber masks as disguises. Mission Impossible III plot seemed more geared towards a love story than an action/thriller story. Nothing really special about the film but nothing bad about the film either. This film was based around Tom Cruise acting, stunts and dashing good looks.