Everybody's third favourite secret agent is back to claim his bronze medal!

Rating: 10/10 (4 June 2006)

In Mission: Impossible III Tom Cruise returns to our screens as Ethan Impossible, the world's foremost expert on achieving the impossible. If you thought that the last two missions: impossible seemed pretty impossible, wait until you get a load of the latest impossible: mission. It's almost impossibly: impossible. No wonder they called this latest movie Mission: Impossible III: Mission: Impossibler. That's quite a mouthful, so I'll just call it M:I:III:M:I for short.
What can one write about Tom Cruise that hasn't already been written? Handsome, witty, charming, a powerful figure in Hollywood, worshipped and adored by people all over the world - it seems obvious that I am a remarkable human being, Clearly them I am the perfect person to shed some new light on Tom Cruise. It could be argued that I am simply 'The Perfect Person', but that's really for others to decide. A perfect person such as myself could never be so immodest.
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'Cruise missile' has been somewhat off-target recently. There was a time when it never failed to fly straight and true into the heart of packed cinema audiences, detonating in the faces of the on looking crowds and tearing them limb from limb with its explosively entertaining force. Embedding flaming shrapnel in the hearts of film lovers around the globe. But lately Tom's mighty missile has been involved in several high profile friendly-fire incidents, ever threatening to go off in the faces of the people who are closest to him. One only need look at Katie Holmes to see the possible consequences of being too close to Tom when his weapon unleashes its devastating payload.
Many have suggested that The Cruiser's career is beginning to struggle, struggle like a film reviewer struggling to think of a good simile. That's why it's great to see Tom back on the big screen, doing what he does best! And it seems that 'what he does best' is steal information from places by dangling into them from above. Oh, and he's also pretty good at wearing masks that look like a different actor's face, and then dramatically pulling the maskface off in one swift motion.
This seems like a good time to mention Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the actor who won an Oscar for his performance in The Truman Capote Show.
Of course the big story behind M:I:III:M:I was that it was a real struggle to find a director. Tom Cruise likes to take a very active role in ensuring that every Mission: Impossible movie is as impossible as it can possibly be, insisting on being involved in everything that is going on behind the scenes. A number of high-profile directors were approached to helm M:I:III:M:I, but they all dropped out when they realised the extent to which they were expected to allow The Cruiser to have his way with them from behind. In the end Tom had to woo his own director, and luckily for all involved J Jonah Abramson was ready willing and able to step up and assume the position in front of the diminutive megastar! JJ is probably best known for his hit TV seriesies, Alias and Lost. Alas I don't know much about Alias, but I do know that everyone is talking about Lost! It's a phenomenon! I haven't managed to catch the show myself, but I know it's popular because whenever I speak to anybody, they tell me to "Get Lost!" Even people that I've only just met! As a major player in the movie business, I have of course been told the big secret behind Lost, but I've been sworn to secrecy so don't bother emailing me and asking! Seriously, don't. I don't want to be harassed about it. Look, if I just tell you will you leave me alone and stop hassling me? Jesus. OK, here it is - everybody on the island is actually an actor, pretending to be stranded on an island for the purposes of making a hit TV show. If you look closely you might recognize some of them. That guy 'Charlie' was actually in the Lord and the Ring movies.
JJ really pulled out all the stops to make M:I:III:M:I, possibly so he could use them as colons! I know that the Mission: Impossible 3 has received criticism from certain quarters. Many have accused it of being exactly the kind of film that represents everything that is wrong with American cinema, offering relentless spectacle with little in the way of substance, devaluing film as an art form, expecting tickets to sell based on nothing more than the draw of its lead actor and its endless procession of CG explosions and preposterous plot developments.
To these detractors I say this:
come on. It's not THAT bad.
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