Don't come into the theater expecting a great story

Rating: 4/10 (4 May 2006)

The pace of the movie was sooooo slow, I fell asleep three times. Every time I woke up, I could still follow the story. I don't even feel that I missed much.
Could it be the directing? I think so. Maybe it's because he came from directing TV shows such as Alias and a few episodes of Lost. I mean, there are things you can do in a small screen and things you cannot do on the big screen. One important thing is the pacing of the story. You can keep on dragging on and on with a TV show because the suspense is what keeps the audience tuned in. You just don't do that in a film, especially in an ACTION film. Sure, it had excellent action sequences. (I stayed awake for those. Awesome!) But everything else...
Come to think of it, it felt like watching Alias. (No offense to people who like the show.) It felt like watching a TV show. It was so episodic (hence totally predictable. Lost isn't though. Haha. I love that show.). Anyway, all it lacked was the commercial breaks. I didn't pay to see a TV show.
Did anyone else have a say on how the story was going to progress? There are few people who can both write and direct effectively (in film). It could've been a setback that the director also wrote the thing. There was no one else to 'editorialize' the thing, bring in something new & exciting to the end product.
I honestly think John Woo would've made a better film out of Mission Impossible III.
I felt that more could've been explored in the film had it not dragged on with some parts (for who knows what reason). The drama in the film. Jeez. I was more drawn to the possible storyline between Ethan and Lindsey (Keri Russell) than to the real deal with the girlfriend. (It was mostly because Keri gave a better performance, in the short amount of screen time she had, than Michelle Monaghan.)
Bottomline, I came out of the cinema feeling cheated out of my money and time. Too much hype. Falls short of (my) expectations. I expected too much from an action flick.