'Mission: Impossible III': Nifty locales, but not much new

Paramount Studios should just ‘fess up here: The Tom Cruise-driven Mission: Impossible films are really the new breed of old James Bond films.

The latest, Mission: Impossible III, has everything those Bond films did: beautiful women, gee-whiz gadgets, exotic locations (Berlin, Vatican City, Shanghai), some bad-guy bent on world domination or the like, extended chase scenes and a handsome, smart, indestructible agent at the film’s center (Tom Cruise).

Paramount Pictures 'Mission: Impossible III' B- The verdict: We've seen this all before. 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 Rate 'Mission: Impossible III'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Check, check check, check, check.

Oh, and one more thing: a plot rendered moot by flashy action sequences.

Check.

J.J. Abrams (“Alias”) takes the director’s chair in the latest installment of the M:I films and the result has more double-crossing characters, emotion and focus than the past two.

It’s still all Tom all the time, though, and after the eleventieth time he dodges bullets, slams through glass, falls from tall buildings at a single bound and rides the outside of vehicles at high speed with only a few scratches, one wonders if there’s kryptonite for this guy.

In Mission: Impossible III, Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) comes out of retirement to rescue an agent he trained (Keri Russell) from Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an ultra-secretive weapons dealer who supplies the world’s terrorists with lots of nasty stuff.

Hunt and his confederates, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Zhen (Maggie Q) and Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), tackle the assignment, but an explosive microcapsule implanted in the agent’s brain — vicious guy, this Davian — foils their mission.

Making things complicated for Hunt this time around is his relationship with fiancee doctor Julia (Michelle Monaghan, who looks a lot like Cruise’s real fiancee, Katie Holmes).

Davian’s sadistic streak leads him to torture and kill the loved ones of those who mess with him, which means that he, Hunt and Hunt’s team will tango again in Vatican City, on the Chesapeake Bay bridge and in Shanghai.

Meanwhile, back at the IMF ranch, operations manager John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) and his boss Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) may or may not be in cahoots with Davian as Brassel seeks to stop Hunt, whom he fears is a rogue agent. Lower on the IMF totem pole, but fun to watch, is techie Benji Dunn (Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg), who feeds Hunt crucial info.

Daniel Mindel’s choppy camera work adds an energy to the action sequences, and there are some nifty set pieces, including a helicopter chase through a German wind farm with massive propellers and Hunt’s death-defying, nighttime leap from a Shanghai skyscraper to secure the deadly bioweapon nicknamed “the Rabbit’s Foot.”

Hoffman, who won Best Actor honors at this year’s Academy Awards for his performance in Capote, gives Davian a bracing, brusque ruthlessness. Too bad there’s not more of him: He’s preferable to Cruise’s all-too-familiar routine of choking up to show deep emotion.

(An interesting aside: Davian supposedly deals with Islamic, North Korean and Chinese terrorists, yet we never see their faces. Skittish about ethnic stereotyping, perhaps?)

For all of Abrams’ efforts to deepen the emotional story, there’s still not much character depth given Cruise’s team, who could be as randomly generated as a squad in the “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six” series of video games (which some Mission scenes feel like).

After awhile the hair’s-breadth escapes, split-second timing and magic logistics of the MI crew start to blur. We’ve seen this all before.

Are you sure James Bond’s in retirement?

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