OK now get onto Part 3 of my look at the Mission Impossible films, which will cover Mission Impossible III or as its also known M:I-3 or M:I:III or if you want to be even more pedantic Mission: Impossible III! (I mean how many ways do you want to market a film???). So enough of all that let's have a look at this film then!
So the film begins with Ethan Hunt (Cruise agan) who has now retired from active field work for the IMF and now trains recruits for the team and now wants to settle down with his fiancee, Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) who knows nothing of Ethan's past. Ethan however is soon approached by a fellow IMF agent John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) who gives Ethan a potential mission to save one of his own proteges, Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) who was investigating an arms dealer, Owen Davian (Philip Seymour-Hoffman). Ethan accepts the mission and teams up with three other IMF agents, his old partner Luther Stickell (Vingh Rhames again), Declan Gormley (Jonathan Ryhs Meyers), Zhen Lei (Maggie Q) in Berlin. Ethan and his team raid the warehouse where Lindsey is help captive and they rescue her, however they find she has a microexplosive device implanted in her head but she dies as it goes off before Ethan can disable it using a defibrillator. Ethan afterward is reprimanded by the IMF director, Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) for mission being a failure and losing Davian. Ethan however soon learns that Lindsey had sent him a postcard, which has a microdot on it under the stamp. Later on Ethan also goes to see one of the IMF technicians, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) who has managed to retrieve some data from the damaged laptops from the warehouse which determines that Davian will be going to Vatican city to gather an object called the "rabbit's foot". Ethan then decides to plan the mission to capture Davian without the consent of either Brassel or Musgrave.
Ethan then infiltrates the city and manages to successfully capture Davian, who during the interrogation threatens to kill Ethan's family and loved ones and he riles Ethan when he says killing Lindsey was "fun" which causes Ethan to almost drop Davian out the plane, but Davian overhears Luther say Ethan's first name. After they land Ethan learns that the microdot contains video footage of Lindsey which warns Ethan that she believes Brassel is working with Davian. However the convoy which Ethan travels in with Davian is soon attacked and Davian escapes leaving Ethan fearful for Julia's life as he races to the hospital where she works but doesn't find her there as she has already been taken. Ethan then receives a message saying that he has 48 hours to retrieve the rabbit's foot or else Julie will die, however Ethan is then captured by the IMF for disobeying orders. Once back at IMF headquarters, Musgrave discreetly mouths instructions to Ethan on the whereabouts of the rabbit's foot and gives him means to escape, as Ethan manages to break free and escape from the IMF. Ethan then travels to Shanghai where the rabbit's foot is located and with the help of his team mates he pulls off a daring feat to steal the rabbit's foot and he then takes it to Davian but his worst fear awaits him when he does....
M:I-3 sees the franchise get nicely back on track after the mediocre M:I-2 and this time round we get more of the much needed ingredients that were soarly missing from the second film, i.e. fun, suspense and excitement. The film also has what was missing so far from the films up to this point and that is a sinister villain, but we get that here with Owen Davian, who really is a rather creepy and chilling individual who takes pleasure in killing people by implanting microexplosive devices in their heads and delivers his loaded threats with a real sense of menace. The theme of Ethan wanting to retire from active field duty also nicely sets up the fact that Ethan is going to have to end up having some sort of last hurraah before he is set to go off and retire for good, only for circumstances to dramatically change as things go on.
Getting onto the performances M:I-3 has much going for it with Cruise again proving himself to be self assured in the role as Ethan Hunt and he keeps that balance of playing Ethan in a rather low key way without the cockyness that he showed in the first film. Most of Cruise's highlights come of course from him action scenes but he still does share some good moments with Vingh Rhames, who plays Ethan's good buddie and former partner, Luther Stickell. Such an example is the scene where Luther warns Ethan of the danger of having relationships in their profession and as Luther helps Ethan put on a face mask of Davian, Ethan says to Luther "Me and Julia got married two days ago" and Luther is stunned and says "Congratulations!" and Ethan smiles sarcastically saying "Thanks man, thanks!". Then there is the scene where Ethan interrogates Davian on the plane and is angered by Davian's attempts to threaten him, so Ethan opens the plane's bay doors and dangles the seat Davian is strapped into outside and he yells "Where is the rabbit's foot????!!!" cutting off the straps that secure Davian one at a time before Luther get's him to stop. Then there is the scene where Ethan makes the daring and not to mention extremely dangerous jump he calls a "fulcrum" where Ethan jumps from a rooftop in Shanghai to another building where the rabbit's foot is said to be held. This was of course a stunt that Tom "I am nuts!" Cruise pulled off himself!
Moving onto Philip Seymour-Hoffamn who pretty much steals the film with his creepy and intense performance as Owen Davian, the ruthless arms dealer who delivers on his threats. Hoffman has quite a few highlights in the film although the one that sticks to mind is when Ethan interrogates Davian on the plane and Davian says "Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? Because if you do, I'm gonna find her. I'm gonna hurt her. I'm gonna make her bleed, and cry and call out your name! And then I'm gonna find you, and kill you right in front of her!". And after Luther get's Ethan to close the plane's bay doors after he threatens to drop Davian out the plane, Davian exhausted lies there and says "What I'm selling and who I'm selling it to should be the last thing you're concerned about.....Ethan!". Then there is the scene they have at the start of the film where Davian holds good on his threat to kill Julia as he slowly counts to ten whilst holding a tied up Julia at gunpoint, which later on leads into the remainder of the scene. And in their last scene where Ethan and Davian fight each other, Davian delivers one last memorable threat "You remember when I said I would kill you in front of her... we'll I'm gonna her in front of you!" (but of course he doesn't get that far!).
Vingh Rhames also nicely reprises his role as Luther Stickell and this time round he is catered for way better than before and Rhames is given some fun moments in the film. Rhames also get's some of the film's best lines such as the scene where Luther looks annoyed when Ethan throws him a steely look and Luther says "You know that look in your eyes is a pain in my ass, you know that??!". Also there is the scene where Luther asks Ethan if he ever got intimate with his trainee Lindsey and Ethan looks warily at him saying "Lindsey was like my little sister!" and Luther says "And you never... slept with your little sister, right?!". And there is the moment where Ethan plans on how to access and break into the building holding the rabbit's foot and as Ethan asks that he needs to do know if his team are in and Luther looks at him simply and says "Of course we're in!". Billy Crudup is also quite good in his part as Musgrave, the somewhat duplicitous IMF agent who helps out Ethan and Billy could almost be the perfect double for Johnny Depp and if they ever needed a stand-in he'd be the man! Michelle Monaghan is also good in her part as Julia, Ethan's fiancee although she is seriously underused in the film given what a good actress she is, its a pity she is largely sidelined here.
As for the other performances Laurence Fishburne is really good in his role as Brassel the IMF director and he has a couple of good scenes. The first scene is where he berates Ethan for his failed mission at the start and he angrily says "You think this op was worth the risk, Mr Hunt?! What do you know about Owen Davian? He was the one who brought gas centrifuge technology to Korea and Pakistan!" and he slams files on the table as he goes on "He is a man who provides!" (slam's another file) "provides!" (slams another) "provides!" (slams yet another!). And later on when Brassel has Ethan captured for his rogue actions and as Ethan is strapped to a table with a restraint over his face, Brassel stands over him and says "You can look at me with those judgmental eyes all you want, but I bullshit you not. I will bleed on the American flag to make sure those stripes stay red!". Jonathan Rhys-Meyers also provides a decent enough turn as one of Ethan's team and has an amusing moment when they are in the Vatican city where his truck supposedly breaks down and he berates the Italian onlookers, speaking fluent Italian. Maggie Q also adds a bit of spice to the proceedings as Zhen Lei, one of Ethan's team who flirts with Ethan when he is masked up as Davian, after having spilled red wine over the real Davian's shirt earlier, and she is given the task of detonating Davian's car, which she rues saying "Its such a nice car!".
And last of all Simon Pegg provides a fun turn and more comic relief in his part as the IMF tech, Benji, who helps out Ethan twice in the film earlier on and later as Ethan races against the clock to save Julia. Pegg naturally has some good lines in the film and he is given a fairly lenghty speech about what the rabbit's foot could be and he says to Ethan "you know whenever I see a rogue organisation willing to spend this amount of money on a mystery tech, I always assume its the anti-God. End of the world kind of stuff! But no I don't have any idea what it is. I was just speculating!". And Benji also suggests "well I'm assuming the rabbit's foot is some sort of codename for a deadly weapon, otherwise it could be just some very expensive bunny apendage!".
Getting on to J.J. Abrahams who does a fine job here and he provides a fine mix of suspense, action and fun to the proceedings and he went on to prove he had a penchant for creating fine action films with the two Star Trek films. The only thing is with J.J. is that he seems to really enjoying overusing lens flare in his films! But that aside he does a grand job in keeping the pace tight and the action flowing nicely and there are several very impressively staged action scenes particularly the scene where Ethan performs his "fulcrum" rooftop jump in Shanghai to access the building holding the rabbit's foot as well as the attack on the convoy holding Davian on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel. Music wise the film also has a decent score by Michael Giacchino who later would provide the scores for J.J's Star Trek films which is nothing amazing but it suits the purpose of the film pretty well.
As for flaws.... well M:I-3 isn't quite perfect but at the same time there isn't too much wrong with it except maybe in terms of Ethan's character he is becoming a bit more one dimensional in the film at this point and the film in this respect has to rely on its more colourful characters i.e. Luther and Benji to make up for that shortfall and in this respect Ethan is now just more a man of action than anything else. The scripting is also still a bit contrived sounding and there are some corny lines here and there and it has to be said the whole formulae of Ethan receiving his missions seems to get that bit more contrived by the minute and in this film he receives his mission to save Lindsey through a kodak film pack (left in a local convenience store by Musgrave) and its not long before we hear that cliched line "You're mission should you choose to accept it....!". But these are niggles of course.
So to sum up Mission: Impossible III is fine entry in the series and it saw the franchise get back on track after the poor M:I-2 and it paved the way for the even better Ghost Protocol, which I will get to on another day.
So for now that's me and I shall bid yee goodnight (time for bed!).
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