Mission: Impossible III - Palm Beach Post movie review

Cruise is definitely in control with 'Mission: Impossible III'

By KEVIN D. THOMPSON
Palm Beach Post Arts Writer

Say what you will about Tom Cruise: He's off his rocker. He's a sexist jerk. He's going through the world's most highly publicized midlife crisis.

But we all know there are two Tom Cruises. There's Tom Cruise: The Man, who isn't afraid to engage in a very public hissy fit with Brooke Shields and Matt Lauer or go all ga-ga over his relationship with Katie Holmes on Oprah's couch.

Paramount Pictures

'Mission: Impossible III'

B+

The verdict: A nonstop thrill ride that should keep moviegoers on the edge of their seats.

Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan
Run time: 126 minutes
Release date: May 5, 2006
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images and some sensuality.
See showtimes

Sneak peek!
Preview the "Misson: Impossible III" action with these stills from the movie.

Mission: Comparables
Atlanta Journal-Constitution film critic Bob Longino compares all three MI movies side-by-side.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

But there's also Tom Cruise: The Movie Star. You know, the toothy, boyishly handsome, ridiculously charismatic �ber-celebrity whose megawatt smile could defrost the coldest of hearts and whose movies continue to make gobs of money around the globe.

With the release of Mission: Impossible III, or as the hip marketing wizards at Paramount are calling it, M:i:III, once again Cruise's box office clout will be put to the test. Can moviegoers — especially women — distance themselves from Cruise's recent off-screen shenanigans for two escapist hours to embrace Cruise: The Movie Star?

The answer: They should.

M:i:III is everything a summer blockbuster should be. It's a big-budget, espionage treat that zooms like a bullet at warp speed. Like all good popcorn movies, M:i:III is filled with dazzling stunts, rock 'em, sock 'em action, sinister plot twists and snarky humor. It's like watching Alias: The Movie. But instead of the pouty-mouthed Jennifer Garner mowing down bad guys as super agent Sydney Bristow, it's a sleekly chiseled Cruise as super IMF agent Ethan Hunt heroically performing the whole save-the-world routine.

Of course, the Alias similarities are no accident. M:i:III was directed by J.J. Abrams, the same man who co-created both Alias and Lost. Abrams may be a rookie feature director, but he's no stranger to the twisty spy genre — and it shows. Abrams knows how to keep the action moving at a brisk rate. Whether Hunt is leaping from one skyscraper to another like Spider-Man or narrowly escaping death as an out-of-control oil tanker comes thisclose to flattening our big screen hero, M:i:III will keep your heart racing.

Abrams, who co-wrote M:i:III's script, also adds a welcome new wrinkle to the popular film series. Known as a deft, character-driven storyteller, M:i:III is the first Mission: Impossible movie that attempts to catch its breath for a moment to tell a more intimate tale of Hunt's struggles at balancing his spy work and home life with a fiancée (Mr. & Mrs. Smith's Michelle Monaghan) who thinks he studies traffic for a living.

The goal is obviously to make Hunt more three-dimensionally human and less macho superhero. The added benefit of a more emotionally vulnerable Hunt: women moviegoers may dig watching the stud agent tap into his feminine side before he runs out and starts blowing up stuff again.

As M:i:III opens, we learn Hunt has retired from active duty and now trains new IMF agents. OK, we know that's not going to last long. To paraphrase Al Pacino from The Godfather III, every time Hunt tries to get out, he gets sucked back in with his team of highly skilled IMF agents — Luther Strickell (Ving Rhames), a tough-talking computer expert; Declan (Match Point's Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a mysterious chameleon who can blend into any situation; and Zhen (Maggie Q), an Asian hottie who, well, looks really fetching in red dresses she shouldn't be wearing at the Vatican.

Calling the shots at IMF headquarters is Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) as the IMF's no-nonsense director who spits lines like, "I will bleed on the flag to make sure the stripes stay red" and Billy Crudup (Stage Beauty), the No. 2 man in charge.

The plot goes like this: When Hunt's prized protégé agent (Felicity's surprisingly believable Keri Russell) is kidnapped by an international weapons-trading psycho named Owen Davian (Capote's purring Philip Seymour Hoffman, who turns snarling here), Hunt finds himself jumping through windows, dodging bullets and hanging off crumbling bridges by his fingernails.

Hoffman, fresh off his Best Actor Oscar, is effectively menacing as a meaty villain who hisses threats to Hunt like, "I'm gonna make her bleed and cry and call out your name."

So Hunt travels from Berlin to Rome to Shanghai in search of the dastardly Davian. It appears as if this Davian dude desperately wants to find something called "rabbit foot," which may or may not have something to do with "self-destructive, end-of-the-world kind of stuff."

It's really not that important. With a film like M:i:III, it's all about souped-up action. And we mean loud souped-up action. Clearly Abrams was under strict orders to keep M:i:III's plot ninth-grade simple and to make sure something — or someone — was exploding every 10 minutes so moviegoers would be happy.

Mission: Accomplished.