Film Reviews

Mission: Impossible 3

• Rating:
• Director: J.J Abrams
• Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman
• Details: US, 126mins, 12.

Black. We hear the sound of someone being tortured. We fade up to a dingy underground room. IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) - beaten, bruised and bleeding - is tied to a chair. Standing in front of him is arch criminal Owen Davian (Hoffman) and he wants to know where the 'rabbit's foot' is. Hunt protests - he already gave Davian the rabbit's foot. Davian is adamant that if Hunt doesn't tell him where it is in ten seconds, he will shoot her. The camera pulls back to reveal Hunt's wife Julia (Monaghan), bound and gagged, sitting opposite. Nine seconds. Hunt protests. Five seconds - Davian puts a bullet in Julia's leg. Three seconds - a teary-eyed Hunt begs Davian to listen to reason. One second - Davian blows Julia's head off. Roll opening credits. Lost creator J.J Abrams kicks off the third instalment of the Mission Impossible series with an explosive and unforgettable opening scene... and from there, the action never quits. This time we see the reluctant Hunt trying to settle down to marriage life but he reluctantly accepts a mission to rescue a fellow IMF agent captured by a rogue organisation intent on buying the undisclosed 'rabbit's foot'. The mission is a success but the agent dies in the escape. Tracking the killers to The Vatican proves easy and Hunt and his crew manage to capture kingpin Davian without much fuss. However, on the way home they are double-crossed by the IMF agency (run by Laurence Fishburne) and Davian escapes, taking Julia hostage. Hunt has now 48 hours to find the rabbit's foot before Davian kills her. Abrams keeps the expected high-tech gadgetry, death-defying stunts and close shaves coming at breakneck speed and maintains the style over substance direction of John Woo (minus the doves in slow motion shots, of course).The entire film is a series of action sequences - set-up, mayhem, next set-up - but Abrams keeps the pace flowing at such speed, no one has time to ask any questions. The Cruiser, the only man who can sprint through crowded streets and still act at the top of his game, is on fire and the only down point of his performance is that you know that a hefty chunk of his salary will go to the Scientologists. Hoffman, on the other hand, proves that a bad guy role is still only a bad guy role and even his heavyweight talent cannot elevate it above the norm. Where it lets itself down is when Abrams calls for a suspension of disbelief so great even the most hardened action movie aficionados will cock their heads to one side and say 'ah, c'mon'; but if you're willing to let a lot of common sense go, Mission: Impossible III is hard to beat.

Review by Gavin Burke