Mission: Impossible III (12A)

Action (2006)
125mins US

Starring: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup
Director: J. J. Abrams
Listings: London | Rest of UK and Ireland

Personal matters cloud secret agent Ethan Hunt's judgement as he tries to protect his girlfriend Julia from harm when he clashes with ruthless arms dealer Owen Davian. Thankfully, covert surveillance expert Luther Strickell is at hand, laden with nifty gadgets to help Ethan outwit the criminal masterminds.

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LondonNet Film Review

Tom Cruise abseiling on a motorized rope, stopping mere centimetres away from a painful landing, face-first into the ground... CHECK! Enough latex masks, disguises and costumes to stock an entire fancy dress emporium... CHECK!

A dour Impossible Mission Force director who utters the immortal line: "This message will self-destruct in five seconds"...

CHECK! Close-ups of Cruise looking sweaty and blood-spattered in a tight-fitting black t-shirt (preferably with slicked hair that doesn't look a strand out of place)... CHECK!

Ving Rhames reprising his role as surveillance expert Luther Strickell, boasting a full arsenal of droll one-liners to poke fun at the leading man's macho posturing... CHECK!

Double cross, triple cross and The Holy Cross... CHECK!

With the pungent whiff of familiarity, the beautiful and buff members of the I.M.F. return in the third and most coherent mission so far, gallivanting from home turf to Berlin, Rome and Shanghai.

Action set pieces are spectacular, beginning with an almighty bang as the team storms a heavily guarded warehouse, before various pyrotechnic-laden showdowns by land, sea and air, including a helicopter chase that almost results in the untimely demise of a flock of innocent sheep. During a daring break and enter in the Far East, Luther admonishes Ethan: "There's a point where bold becomes stupid..." For the most part, the three screenwriters listen to their own advice, keeping the hairpin twists to a minimum and concentrating on characterization. However, they are not adverse to the odd detour from logic or stretch of credibility.

It's bold and stupid to ask us to accept that the I.M.F. would be thwarted at a vital juncture by a dodgy mobile phone signal - terrorists wielding state-of-the-art weaponry are no problem, but the mission grinds to a halt in an area with bad reception? Shouldn't someone inform the megalomaniacs of the world: the good guys are powerless as long as you build your fortress in a communications black spot? Cruise slips effortlessly back into the black togs of special operative Ethan Hunt, who has retired from active duty, and now restricts himself to training new agents, like his most recent protegee Lindsey Farris (Russell). Instead, Ethan is happily building a life with his fiancee Julia (Monaghan), dreaming of happy families and pretending to be a researcher in traffic patterns.

That dream is put on hold when Musgrave (Crudup) gets in touch: "Farris has been off the grid for 11 hours. I'm sending in search and rescue. I hoped you'd want it." And so Ethan teams up with three fellow I.M.F. agents - Luther, transportation expert Declan (Rhys Meyers) and the beautiful yet deadly Zhen (Q) - to save the Lindsey from international weapons trader Owen Davian (Hoffman).

The mission uncovers an even greater threat: Davian is attempting to sell something called The Rabbit's Foot for $850 million. The team must recover The Rabbit's Foot - whatever that may be - before a rogue state acquires it. Director J. J. Abrams, co-creator of the television series Lost and Alias, thrives under the intense pressure of delivering the most exciting and outrageous stunts orchestrating carnage on a grand scale, complete with myriad nifty gadgets.

He opens, daringly, with a scene from the end of the film then flashes back to show us the lead up to the tragedy, arming us with enough tidbits of information so we spend the rest of the picture trying to guess what happens next. Cruise performs many of his own stunts, adding to the authenticity and also gets to show some emotion in the romantic sub-plot, which errs on the saccharine towards the end. Indeed, the climactic action sequence is the possibly the film's weak point, with moments of unintentional hilarity, including a time check to doomsday, delivered gleefully by Hoffman's terrifically menacing baddie, that the film then willfully ignores. Tut tut."

Ralph Jennings

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