Ridiculously entertaining for a largely cliché flick

Rating: 7/10 (5 May 2006)

Experience told me not to expect much of sequels - especially those of high-budget, insanely-popular, heavily branded (and franchised) titles. Excitement, however, told Experience to shut up. But after a rather confused mental stage set by last year's major non-fulfillment, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", you didn't quite know what to expect.
Here's the verdict: Guilty. Mission: Impossible III is guilty of inciting excitement, heightening one's senses, taking logic and throwing it right out of the window. And, worst of all, succeeding.
Even without a good-enough plot-line, without much creativity, without much acknowledgment of reality and without anything outstanding you expect out of a monumental Cruise flick - it holds up. In fact, it holds up pretty high. The visual effects are simply outstanding (not that you expect anything less from 'Industrial Light & Magic'), sound is stunning and the action just doesn't yield.
Although M:I-3 employs a tried and tested formula for the plot, I can't say I wasn't thrown off here and there. I enjoy movies that don't quite reveal everything (like 'Red Eye'). Or even those that choose to leave you confused about what's actually happening till around the end, after which they'll introduce a new puzzle to replace the void created by the one it just solved. Of course, there are somethings that don't quite fit in (yet work wonderfully): tight humor in the most trying situations, super-trained-super-disciplined special agents oddly guided by emotion ('Jackson Rippner', anyone?), death of countless others to save the life of one. That last one I'll take back for either of two reasons: it isn't true, or it's distinctly Mission Impossible.
Laurence Fishburne ('Brassel') fits in perfectly, and Philip Seymour Hoffman ('Davian') introduces a much-needed element of mystery to the bad guy. I can't say much about Cruise. If I said "great acting", that would be understating the man's abilities; if I said "typical Cruise", that wouldn't do him justice. So I think it would only be fair to just mention his name and leave it at that: Tom Cruise.
If you're willing to allow yourself to be alienated of reality, society and, well... intellect (and I was), then Mission: Impossible 3 is certainly going to be an excellent leap off memory tower. Provided, of course, you don't really expect anything of it. And you don't mind silly, nonsensical humor that actually starts making sense after a while. For those seeking academic excellence, or even just a "good movie" (in that sense), this release can largely be put off for when you're feeling life isn't exciting enough. Or when you're feeling movies these days don't have good enough opening sequences. Or for the sheer heck of it.
But if you're in it for the experience, then director J.J Abrams definitely delivers, and you find yourself coming out of it with a huge grin, feeling all heroic. In my book, that spells success.