A Trilogy ... hopefully

Rating: 5/10 (5 May 2006)

Greetings again from the darkness. The biggest star, the best actor, a cool theme song, great cast, hot director, high tech gadgets, a $300,000 Lamborghini and some great shots of Rome and Shanghai. All of this should lead to a killer action thriller. Instead we get little more than a two hour TV episode. The dialogue and story are elementary at best.
Super freak Tom Cruise reprises his Ethan Hunt role in what we can only hope will be the final installment in the MI series. Cruise, of course, puts on his best Tom Cruise impersonation as he struts, sprints, scowls, stares and smiles through the whole film.
The Cruise circus is not the surprise. What is surprising, and near criminal, is the total wasting of the sterling cast. Ving Rhames has a couple of one-liners, Lawrence Fishburne is in a couple of scenes, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q are just eye candy. The rarely seen Billy Crudup (in awful pink lipgloss) is just plain awful as he bows down to Cruise in their shared scenes. Up and coming megastar Michelle Monaghan gets to do little more than smile, cry and smooch on Cruise. The biggest waste of all is the use of Philip Seymour Hoffman who flashes his brilliance in his too few scenes as evil incarnate. This had the chance to be one of the all time great film baddies, but the part is so short and poorly written that even the magnificence of Hoffman can't quite get it there.
Turning this over to TV boy wonder ("Lost") JJ Abrams may have been the biggest mistake. He was obviously not ready for this project. It disappoints throughout and Abrams does not have the chops (of DePalma in the first one) to improve the script and provide some flow to a weak story. His direction is muddled and sloppy and even out of focus at times. The big scene on the bridge with the drone and helicopter is just a mess. And what is with the lack of use for the classic theme song? Such a disappointment!