Tiny Tom Suffers In Hoffman's Shadow

Rating: Null/10 (8 May 2006)

Tom Cruise makes a surprisingly good Jennifer Garner. J.J. Abrams 'Mission: Impossible III' is pretty much a re-hash of plot points and characters from his 'Alias' TV show  in the days before it disappeared, cryptic cipher in hand, up it's own narrative back passage. There are bluffs and double-bluffs a-plenty, our hero gets all angsty about deceiving his lover and leading a double life, we spend two-plus hours of screen time chasing an artifact the purpose of which is never explained, and certain characters from 'Alias' simply seem to be played, here, by actors on a slightly higher pay grade  most notably Simon Pegg's comedy techno-geek. Abrams fondness for non-linear narrative is also indulged.
This, by the way, is not a complaint. At it's best 'Alias' was a superbly quirky and imaginative show, and at his best Abrams can be an exceptionally fine adventure writer. This is a well-paced, densely plotted piece of popcorn accompaniment  vastly superior to it's predecessors in the franchise. Big guns go bang. Cars go bang. Buildings go bang, and our plucky hero triumphs against all adversity. And, just in case we're enjoying all the violence too much, the writer reminds us of his liberal leanings by throwing an implied seeding-discord-overseas-to-justify-aggressive-American-foreign policy sub-plot, but, like most of the characterisations this is undevelopedand doesn't distract us from the nice fireworks.
Philip Seymour Hoffman dominates the film, despite having comparatively little screen time. One has to feel a little sorry for Tiny Tom, being set against a proper actor, one with actual screen presence and who has used the bare-bones of character sketched in the script to create a more memorable screen-persona than the bland action-movie clones around them.
It doesn't have much to say, but it says it boldly and very loudly. It's what an action movie should be.