Tom Cruise and Kerri Russell take on a truly challenging assignment in Mission: Impossible III |
Director: JJ Abrams
Cast: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Owen
Davian), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Billy Crudup (John Musgrave), Michelle
Monaghan (Julia Meade), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Declan Gormley), Maggie Q (Zhen
Lei), Keri Russell (Lindsay Farris), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Eddie Marsan
(Brownaway), Laurence Fishbourne (Theodore Brassel)
If there is one thing Tom Cruise does better than anyone in
the movies, its run. Man, can that guy run well on camera. It’s not as easy as
you’d think – watch people run in real life, and they probably look galumphing
and awkward. But Tom looks as sleek as a gazelle. Every stride stresses his
authority and unflappable coolness. I mention it because Tom does a lot of running in this film. The
dénouement is basically him running over a mile and half, nearly in real time,
a lot of it one long shot.
JJ Abrams came to Mission:
Impossible off the back of his successful TV series, Alias, in which Jennifer Garner’s undercover agent takes on a
variety of disguises, working in a team, on a series of missions to get
impossible-to-obtain artefacts against terrific odds. JJ Abrams carries the
formula that worked so well in that series straight into this one.
The whole film plays out like an Alias movie. It even uses that series regular gambit of an opening
scene throwing us dramatically into the story before flashing back “72 hours
earlier”. Just like Alias, we have
our lead trying to make a relationship work without saying what they do for a
living, a family feeling in the team’s relationship, a geeky tech guy with a
heart of gold, double and triple agents, glamourous locations – it’s everything
an Alias fan could want, with
Cruise’s Ethan Hunt essentially Sydney Bristow in all but name. This also brings
out the best in Cruise, who looks like a man born again in the role.
Mission: Impossible:
III is truly delightful, big-screen fun, rebirthing the series and placing
team interplay firmly back at the centre, setting the tone and template the
next two films have followed. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is in semi-retirement,
training agents and planning to marry Julia (Michelle Monaghan). However when
his young protégée Lindsay Faris (Keri Russell) is captured while investigating
sinister arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Hunt sets out to
rescue her – and finds himself up to his neck in shady and dangerous goings-on.
Every action scene in the film is brilliantly entertaining
(the mid-film drone assault is wind-it-back-and-watch-again exciting.). Of
course, Cruise takes more than his fair share of the juicy moments – including
a crazy jump off the roof of a Hong Kong building that has to be seen to be
believed – but Abrams makes this a team movie in the way neither of the two
previous films had been. Each member brings crucial skills to the table, and has
moments to shine. Pegg takes the stand-out role of a witty, nerdy tech back at
the base (sure enough his role was expanded later), but each feels an essential
part of the story.
It also helps that the film has a terrific baddie to bounce
off – the series has not had a better villain than Hoffman’s ice cold arms
dealer. Sure Davian is pretty much a part Hoffman could play standing on his
head – but he’s got just the right balance of rage and ruthless intellect.
If you want to see a single example of why this film works,
take a look at that opening scene. Who could resist a film that opens with a
scene as masterfully directed as this, sizzling with tension and ending with a
smash cut to black over a gun shot and into the opening score? Hoffman and
Cruise are excellent (Hoffman’s ice-cold control providing a great contrast to Cruise,
who runs the gamut of defiant, furious, faux-reasonable, desperate and
pleading), but it sets out the huge stakes for the film, it keeps us nervily
waiting for the film to catch-up with what we’ve seen, and it tells us how
vitally important what Davian wants is to him – and how desperate Hunt is to
protect Julia.
Abrams has a perfect understanding of dramatic
construction. Everything in the film is
carefully established and set-up, so we always understand the dangers and the
threats. MI3 also uses its macguffin extremely
well. What do we learn about “the Rabbit’s Foot”, the possession of which is of
such vital importance? It’s small enough to fit in a suitcase, it’s stored in a
round glass tube, it’s got a biohazard label and it’s worth millions. That’s
it, but it doesn’t matter: Abrams establishes the most important thing – it’s
dangerous and Davian wants it more than anything. Everything spins out from
that with smooth efficiency.
The pace never lets up, but the characters and their
relationships are never left behind. In particular Monaghan and Cruise’s
relationship is skilfully established in surprisingly few scenes, and something
we end up really rooting for. Abrams never goes overboard – the film is stuffed
with action and excitement but never feels bloated or indulgent: the final
confrontation is particularly effective because it is fairly small scale and is
focused on the Hunts’ relationship.
Mission: Impossible 3
is one of the most joyful entries in a film franchise that deserves a lot of
kudos for (by and large) focusing on plot, story and character alongside action
sequences that have a feeling of tangible reality about them. It’s not
completely perfect – a shock reveal about a turncoat in the IMF is hardly a
surprise, considering the small number of candidates and the actors playing
them – but it’s about as close as you can get to an endless enjoyable
fairground ride.
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