Mission Impossible 3

Rewind to 2006. My buddies and I are at the theater and we are waiting for the new Mission Impossible. Its been 6 years since the last Mission Impossible, a movie we actually really loved. I don't care what some people say about Mission Impossible 2, yes it was cheesy, yes it was all John Woo-ey but I still enjoyed the shit out of it.

Mission Impossible 3 is a very different movie from Mission Impossible 2.

And that's kind of been the theme amongst almost all of the Mission Impossible movies. The first one was more of an espionage thriller with a couple of stunts like that iconic suspension scene.

That was about the amount of really over the top stunts Mission Impossible did.

And then you get Mission Impossible 2 which was directed by John Woo. He of course is going to make everything really crazy and over the top because people in a John Woo film can't really listen to gravity.

I watched MI2 a while ago and I thought I did a review about it and I'm figuring out now I didn't. But I liked it as an attempt to make an American James Bond film, it kind of had the Pierce Brosnan Bond feel to it, and I'm guessing the same way the Pierce Brosnan films weren't really well received, with the exception of one or two, MI2 wasn't received as well too.

So they bring in the new George Lucas himself (except better because he's going to make the new movies better than George Lucas or he will be called the new Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars... moving on) J.J. Abrams. At the time I wasn't a huge fan of Abrams because I hadn't seen much from him.

And thus we get the new Mission Impossible film, at the time.

Ethan Hunt has, since the last film, left active field work for IMF and has resorted to teaching. He's found a new woman (played by Michelle Monaghan) because I guess Thandie Newton wasn't available or wasn't that important.

The funny part was, that actually bothered me when I saw this movie. I was like, "The Hell?" Where's Thandie Newton?

In fact I'm still wondering where Thandie Newton is. I guess they wanted to go for the fact that the wife doesn't know what Ethan Hunt does but dear lord, they don't even explain it. I was young and I know now that throwing away female supporting roles is not anything really new in action films like this but I liked Thandie Newton dammit.

Anyway, like I said, Michelle Monaghan doesn't know that Ethan Hunt is a secret agent. He's semi-retired when IMF comes to find him and tells him that his best student (played by Keri Russel) has been captured by an arms dealer named Owen Davian. (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman)

The opening scene to this movie I actually really liked. It wasn't the over the top action that I remember from the John Woo film but it was pretty good and it was the only real scene we get with Keri Russel because a bomb is planted in her brain and she dies but not before giving a secret message to Ethan.

The rest of the film is Ethan's strained relationship problems with Michelle Monaghan because she doesn't know what he does and IMF going to capture Owen Davian.

But when they do and he escapes, suddenly its a race against time because the two stories collide, Davian kidnaps Michelle Monaghan and Ethan must do everything he can to free her, including handing over a mysterious weapon called, The Rabbit's Foot, over to Davian.

There's a lot of things about this film that makes it the one I like the least out of all the Mission Impossible films.

I'm not really sure where to start so I'll start with Ethan's team.

In the last two films, they had a helicopter pilot and Ving Rhames and Ethan. Now I guess they needed another... person. Don't get me wrong, I really like Maggie Q. But if I had to choose between her in this and her in Live Free and Die Hard, its definitely Die Hard. Jonathn Rhys Meyers was boring in this film, so was Maggie Q. And then there's Ving Rhames. He and Ethan has some good interactions but in the end, it didn't really seem like Ethan needed a team in this movie. This movie was just about Ethan and these guys were just pawns in his end goals.

So that was strike one, a boring team. It should have been either a solo film with just Ethan or leave out Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys Meyers because they were boring.

I suppose to condense things I'll do my schpeel about IMF while I'm kind of on the topic. In the last films, IMF seemed to be an obscure shadow organization. The only people we saw were Anthony Hopkins and other obscure handlers giving Ethan Hunt the mission.

In this film, they give IMF a building, a board of directors, suddenly something that was so obscure is now... less obscure. The charm of Mission Impossible was the James Bondish separation between the field agents and the bureaucracy that came along with an organization like this.

Mission Impossible 3 introduces that bureaucracy and its just boring.

That kind of leads into my thoughts on Laurence Fishburne and Billy Crudup.

I love Laurence Fishburne. I think he's a great actor and for the most part, he did a good job in this film.

Was his character an asshole just to be an asshole? Yes. In the end am I coming out of Mission Impossible 3 saying Laurence Fishburne did an awesome job. No. He's just there to give the movie a little bit of star power. He didn't need to be in the film.

And then there's Billy Crudup. I'm not going to give Crudup a picture because he was so pointless and dull in this movie that I don't want to show him. The main story with these two is that there is a mole in IMF. In 2006 this may have been cool to me but it is one of the biggest cliches in the book. There's always a mole and one way or another its always the one you expect it is.

Now I hate to shit on the mole cliche because I actually do like that cliche. I think 24 did it the best in the first season but after a while people get really annoyed of "the mole" cliche. It was kind of a cop out in this film and it really didn't serve any purpose to the film.

When Hunt finally meets the mole, the explanation as to why he was the mole is so rushed and so pointless that it really didn't need to happen.

So revision to strike one is Strike one is IMF in general. It took a shadow organization and tried to make it into something that we think could actually exist.

Strike two. Owen Davian.

Now I don't want to speak bad of the dead.

I respect Phillip Seymour Hoffman for the success he had as an actor because I know a lot of people will never reach the amount of success he has had.

But I didn't really care for him in this film.

Owen Davian is suppose to be a Black Market weapons dealer who is all but a ghost. Well he didn't really feel like a ghost when Ethan Hunt finds him very quickly.

He's suppose to be menacing and a stone cold villain given his first scene in the entire movie. In fact here's that scene right now.

This was actually a really interesting way to open up the film, showing the villain with the protagonists balls in his hands and the look of indifference when he tries to bargain his way out or make himself think that he's in control.

This scene was really good.

However, the problem I have with Owen Davian is that there isn't really a character to him. He's just an evil menacing bad guy who cannot be bargained with. This isn't always a bad choice. The Joker was a similar situation in which there was no method, no weaknesses to this character. He was always in control even when he wasn't in control. The difference is that The Joker was interesting, Owen Davian is not.

There's also the fact that Owen Davian doesn't really do anything in this film. He's not even the person they're really going for. They could easily arrest him, which they do, but instead they're going for his buyers. Owen Davian is not going to release a bomb in time square, he's not really out to kill anybody except those that get in his way.

While this sounds interesting, in the end he doesn't do anything in this film. His goons kidnap Michelle Monaghan, he points a gun at her but in the end he doesn't really kill her. The only thing Owen Davian does in this film is spew out to Ethan Hunt what he's going to do to his wife.

Now that I think about it, its really not Phillip Seymour Hoffman's fault. I think I would have liked Owen Davian had he actually done something in the film. I blame the writers. So I'm not speaking bad of the dead. Way to go Hoffman!

And then there's Michelle Monaghan.

I'm going to leave all my thoughts on the fact they just threw Thandie Newton out out of this part of the review.

Because the truth is, I really didn't like their choice of Michelle Monaghan. Is she attractive? Yes. Is she a good fit for Ethan Hunt. No. She's boring, she has problems with Ethan's secret life only when the script demands that she does and she's just pointless. She's the damsel in distress Ethan needs to save and I only cared about what happened to her because I cared about Ethan Hunt and what he death would do to him.

Going back to the scene above, its only good because of Tom Cruise's reactions to it. But Owen Davian could be pointing that gun at a puppy, or a book, or a piece of pizza for all I care because Michelle Monaghan is boring and pointless in this film.

Now I've been shitting on this movie for a while. That's not to say that there aren't good things about the film.

Maybe its because in real life he's slightly nuts, maybe its about the same time this movie came out, he was dancing on a couch yelling, "I'm in love with Katie Holmes!", but somehow I keep on thinking Tom Cruise is not a fun interesting actor. He really really is.

I would put him in the category above Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, and Alec Baldwin in the, we know he's crazy but we love him category, with Will Smith and Jim Carrey.

In short, Tom Cruise is really fun in this movie. He plays Ethan Hunt really really well and continues to be a good action star. Its amazing because he's only 5.7. It gives me hope that short people do have a hope in this world. And it makes me happy because I'm taller than him.

But again pointing to the scene above, Tom Cruise can act.

And regardless of the fact that its not as over the top as John Woo would do it, the action in this film is really good.

I think J.J. was trying to delve into the territory that Jason Bourne had carved in the 2000s by making Mission Impossible a little bit more in the espionage but realistic thriller action movie that the Bourne movies were capitalizing on and even James Bond had started to recreate about the same time.

I personally prefer it when a Mission Impossible movie is more Mission Impossible. Alluding back to MI2, why is Tom Cruise climbing a dangerous mountain? I don't know. But he is.

Like I said before, I've always seen Ethan Hunt as the American James Bond. Keep it that way and leave the Bourne stuff, to Jason Bourne.

Finally, while I have a lot of complaints about the elements of the story, the story is actually pretty good. Its a combination of Ethan Hunt's personal life and professional life colliding and him having to deal with it.

It just had to be written a little bit better in my opinion.

This movie was written by the same guys, including Abrams, who wrote Fringe and Star Trek. Personally, it doesn't really fit with a Mission Impossible film.

Its fascinating because while I've only seen the pilot to Alias, I can see the influences Abram's pulls from that in this. I was not a fan of the pilot of Alias. I'm sure some people think its good but I was not a fan.

And that brings me to the strangest part of Mission Impossible 3.
The Rabbit's Foot.

We go the entire movie wondering what this darn weapon is that Owen Davian is so bent on selling, what IMF is so bent on making sure they get their hands on it.

And when it comes down to it. We never figure out what it is.

In the end, I think that was the part that bothered me the most.

Sure they do a whole deal with Simon Pegg about how it might be a doomsday device but then when Ethan is talking to the mole in IMF he says they were going to sell it to Middle Eastern countries and terrorists and start the war the United States just needed to enter. (BTW, politics in a Mission Impossible film, c'mon, there's a time and place for that stuff and its not in a Mission Impossible film) So it can't be a doomsday device is they were going to sell it to terrorists. That's just stupid.

I have to give Abrams credit for actually having a weapon clouded in mystery, the ENTIRE time. But it didn't really pay off in the end like it was built up to.

Oh, also Aaron Paul is in this film. That was funny.

So overall, Mission Impossible 3 has a lot of things going for it but at the same time had A LOT of things against it. Its definitely my least favorite of the entire franchise because, to me, its just not as fun and its not as Mission Impossible -y as it is Alias...y. 

I love Abrams but I just don't think espionage action is his forte. 

Overall, its not written as great as people think it is, IMF is all sorts of jacked up, Michelle Monaghan is a pointless character as well as Owen Davian while Hoffman does give a solid performance with what he has. 

I've been waiting a long time to do this review because I feel I've been in a minority, a lot of people seemed to like this film at the time. What do you think? Did you like Mission Impossible 3? How does it compare with the other Mission Impossible films? Comment and discuss below!

I'll leave you with this. Like I said before, Tom Cruise is in that category of probably certifiably insane. But that doesn't deny the fact he's a good actor. Here's the original video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology. Enjoy!