Where the story ends and Tom Cruise begins...

Rating: 6/10 (23 May 2006)

First of all let me say this review is coming from a guy who loves James Bond and any other spy/agent movie. A lot. I can handle the logical shortcomings of the genre, and yes, I even love when James Bond is chasing an empty plane like Superman did in his best days. But it's not everything.
This movie has a lot of aforementioned spectacular action scenes and those scenes are technically solid. But the movie itself is way overloaded with it. Maybe because the Writer and Director were lacking ideas to develop authentic characters and a fresh story ? I'd say so. The strongest part of the movie are the first 20-30 mins, and even then the dialogues are flat and trivial. The love story between Ethan Hunt and Julie is anything but authentic and touching. It could be replaced with a music video, that has 2 pretty people looking at each other for a few minutes. Even with some potential in the script, namely the conflict of keeping Ethan's double identity and his relation to Julie working - or not, the script didn't achieve to make the love story feel authentic. The ridiculous reanimation scene at the end is just the tip of the iceberg and here the director has his worst moment in the movie too. Once the action starts just forget you have a brain, you're not gonna need it. We've seen all the gadgets and seeing Tom Cruise climbing over walls, crouching through air vents and jumping off roofs isn't overwhelming. In summary, these scenes lack ideas too - just like anything else in the movie.
Summary: The receipt of changing locations every 20 minutes, brainless action and visuals, which seem to be stolen from some music video, doesn't work out. The movie seems more like a commercial for Tom Cruise face than anything else. It lacks ideas, the acting is below average (let alone Hoffman and Fishbourne, whose performances are solid) and directing is fixed on having Tom Cruise and the other characters look pretty. 6/10