No longer an active field agent, IMF member Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) spends his time training new agents while hiding his job and past from his fiancé. When one of his former pupils is captured, IMF calls on hunt to rescue her. When the mission fails, Hunt is dragged deeper down the rabbit hole and goes full-on active duty again. Hunt and his new team must find a way to prevent a ruthless arms dealer named Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) from acquiring a mysterious super weapon, sniff out a mole inside IMF, and keep Hunt’s wife out of danger.
Fans of the TV show Mission: Impossible have long complained about the film series and I am sure that any of those fans who saw M:I 3 did plenty of bellyaching. Perhaps Abrams drew from his work on Alias to form the foundation of the spy antics of this film. Gone is most of the long-winded exposition of how the plan is supposed to go down. In its place is a frantic pace and high-octane set pieces that grip you tight. Some fans of the series will find this approach refreshing while others may feel Abrams sold M:I out and emulates the secret agent mechanics of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer. While the format does make this film harder to remember, I still found myself refreshed.
Abrams has been unafraid to take an unorthodox approach to his work on television and he is similarly unafraid to be unorthodox here. During what would normally be the key set piece of the film, in which Ethan Hunt breaks into a highly secure Chinese research center at the top of a dizzying skyscraper, the audience sees nothing. Rather than watch the frenzied smash-and-grab sequence, we wait outside with Hunt’s partners wondering what on earth is going on in there. Even the item he is grabbing, the Rabbit’s Foot, is never explained; it is simply something both our protagonist and antagonist want to get their hands on. It’s a total MacGuffin but the spy/thriller genre has always utilized that sort of plot device.
Because Hunt’s team members have been interchangeable over three films, the success or failure of M:I 2 and M:I 3 really lies with the villain. The first film introduced us to the determined and heroic Ethan Hunt, so emphasis on villain was minimal (and we didn’t know who the real villain was for much of the film). The villain in M:I 2 was a clichéd rouge agent. Mission: Impossible III features the most intense villain yet and Philip Seymour Hoffman deserves every word of praise he received for his performance. His character is so intelligent, resourceful, and vicious enough to make audiences feel that no one is safe. The level of ferocity that Hoffman injects into the film raises the stakes and helps make the break-neck pace feel warranted.
The plot itself may be forgettable but I walked away from this film marveling at how exciting it was. It boasts an excellent villain, slick directing, and a flurry of intense action sequences. In short, this is the kind of stuff we should expect from a spy flick. It’s not as convoluted as the original and not bogged down with the silly and intricate choreographed violence of M:I 2. It’s a fine cat-and-mouse game and stands, in my mind, as the best of the three M:I films thus far. It is also easily the most underrated film in the series. If M:I 2 turned you off to the series, do yourself a favor and check this one out. Chances are you won’t be disappointed.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5
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