Review: M:I:III

Or as Stephen Colbert calls it, "Miiiih". Tom Cruise takes a lot of abuse. For his belief system, for his love life, for his crazy antics and rants on psychotherapy. He may have created the career equivalent to a TV show "jumping the shark" by being the basis for the phrase "jumping the couch". But, like him or not, the little guy can really make a blockbuster. Time and again he has proved his mettle on the big screen with the big effects. So here it is, ten years after the original M:I movie, a kinder, gentler, family oriented Ethan Hunt. He has taken a step back from his career in order to be close to his fiancée Julia, a diminutive brunette nearly twenty years his junior, who he falls head over heels for... wait, is this still the movie, or People magazine? Anyway, in this case, the brunette is Michelle Monaghan, who showed up in four big movies last year, although you may not remember her from any of them. Ethan and Julia have just gotten engaged when a mysterious call comes in telling Ethan he's just won a trip to Mexico, if he's interested. Making an excuse, he excuses (do you mind if I do that?) himself and heads to the local 7-11, where he is given instructions for his next Impossible Mission by his former IMF (Impossible Mission Force, who'd have guessed) agency supervisor, Musgrave (Billy Crudup). That mission? To extricate Hunt's former protegé from her captors. Apparently, Lindsay Ferris (former Felicity Kerri Russell) has information that will lead to a notorious arms dealer Owen Davian (reigning Best Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his plans for selling the Rabbit's Foot, a plot device that is never fully revealed.

So the game is afoot, and Ethan is joined with a team, including series stalwart Ving Rhames as Luther Strickell. After they 'rescue' Agent Ferris, she begins to have a splitting headache, which turns out to be an explosive charge implanted in her head. I don't want to spoil it, but we don't see her for the rest of the movie, so draw your own conclusions. What follows is non-stop action and adventure, as Ethan and his team go on unauthorized missions to invade the Vatican, where the sale is being made, and Shanghai, where Ethan must recover the Rabbit's Foot, and rescue his lady love, all the while uncovering clues that lead to a mole within IMF. Cars explode and flip over, helicopters make narrow escapes, people jump off buildings and scale walls, standard stuff designed to bust the block, and first time feature director J.J. Abrams does it with all the style and mystique that have shown up on his prime-time series' Alias and Lost. I mean it, all the style and mystique. You can literally pinpoint scenes within the movie that hark back to those shows. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I bet fans would really enjoy an Alias movie to tie up loose ends. I know X-Files fans are still waiting for theirs. It's a pretty auspicious debut for Abrams, getting to spend $185 million (that's a made-up number, but it sounds true) on his first movie. The next one is sure to be a letdown, normally. But when the next one is a rumoured eleventh Star Trek flick, who knows, maybe he's managed to skip low-budget resumé fillers altogether.

Anyway, you can start applying your sunscreen and leave your brain at home. Summer movie season has begun. With nothing but sequels, remakes and adaptations on the slate, no longer will we have to apply our grey matter to anything more complicated than why the Wayans Brothers are still allowed near cameras. I'll be back soon to run down some of the summer movies I'm looking forward to seeing (and dissing). But take this to heart, Tom Cruise, although I don't care for him as a real guy, can still sell me on Ethan Hunt and his take-few-prisoners style of justice.

∆∆∆1/2 of 5