Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006)

Oddly enough I never watched the full MI movie series before. The first Mission: Impossible from 1996 was the first ‘proper’ film I saw in the cinema. Therefore it carries a lot of sentimental value and I still believe it is actually a good movie. After I ‘incidentally’ saw the 4^th film last year I was pretty disappointed and decided it was about time to watch numbers 2 and 3. The 2^nd one was pretty bad as well but the 3^rd oddly enough was a very entertaining and intelligently constructed film. I will try to explain the difference.

Let’s start with the first one, why was it good? Of course the complexity of the plot (let’s say it is more complex than the other 3 or for instance Inception) made it challenging, but I think in this case the director (Brian de Palma) managed to create a lot of suspense mainly by introducing every mission properly and explain its urgency to the viewer. Of course the movie has its flaws, but I believe it did pretty well what it was supposed to do: create an entertaining suspenseful action film.

About the second one. I will not spend too many words since I will compare most elements in my review of the third movie but director John Woo for me failed in most elements where the movie should and could score points. The story is usually more or less the same for these films (or a James Bond film if you wish) so this is not where the film can distinguish itself. This can be done in chemistry between male and female leads, the villain, the choreography of the action scenes and the suspense created.

Most of the elements mentioned above are much better portrayed and executed in Mission: Impossible III. Let’s start with the male and female lead. In this film Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) got married and wants to settle down. Of course the mission calls when he has the rescue a girl he trained and sent out in the field. When he can’t manage to save her the situation becomes personal for him and he wants to go after the villain Owen Davians (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who after being held hostage and threatened by Hunt promises to go after Hunt’s wife. This creates a sense of urgency we as viewers can understand. Compare this to the 2^nd film, where the relationship between Hunt and the female lead was forced and therefore felt unnatural, the sense of urgency was missing for me there.

Then the earlier mentioned villain, with personal favourite Philip Seymour Hoffman the choice could not have been better for any film that needs an intelligent evil villain. Period.

Finally, the suspense. In every respect this film beats its predecessor. First of all, the choreography of the action sequences is much better. The style of John Woo couldn’t interest me much but the most important reason for this lies in the preparation. Let’s for instance take the masks Ethan Hunt and other characters tend to use in these films. Of course this is a gadget we take for granted, let’s not point out the differences in eye colour, length and manners of characters that could make this feature an unlikely one. The usage of this feature should somehow be introduced to us to make it credible I would say, this is exactly what Abrams does in the third film when Owen Davians is about to be kidnapped and Ethan will be impersonating him. We see how the mask is created and that it takes time to do this job well, this creates great suspense. In the second film the masks came out of nowhere, which annoyed me.

Last but not least: the missions. In the second one we have some kind of deadly ‘Chimera’ virus, which somehow can be spread by someone who is infected. There are some plotholes in this story. Abrams makes a very intelligent choice in the third film by not giving the viewer any details about a dangerous compound called ‘the Rabbit’s foot’. Not knowing what it is makes it scarier, this always seems to work. More or less the same holds for the presence of the villain, in the third film Hoffman doesn’t have that much screen time making him more mysterious than his predecessor in the second film. The missions concerning the deadly compounds are set out differently, just like in the first film Abrams prepares his viewers very well in how to get what they are after (in the third one this is the villain in person). Woo failed to introduce the scene of the heist in the second film and as a viewer you kind of fall straight into the action.

All in all, the 3^rd film can measure itself with the first Mission Impossible film and I believe that director J.J. Abrams took a good look at what went wrong before. Of course, not every role is acted well, and there are some flaws but overall he created a very credible and suspenseful action film which I can strongly recommend.

7.5/10