Only a few moments will undoubtedly appeal to the guys. The aerial battle over Berlin in a wind turbine field, although it’s inexplicable why the helicopter pilot chose that field to start. But it’s done with panache, awakening motor reflexes. The abduction in the Vatican is also done quickly and precisely – it’s interesting to watch how smoothly the team of pros works, although it’s unlikely a patrolman would let Zhen (Maggie Q) through without an invitation based on a nod from an unfamiliar officer (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). But they all dress and apply makeup impressively; there’s a large costume department in the Vatican’s basement. The showdown on the bridge is impressive both because of the bifurcated bridge itself and the homing missiles. The pilot knew in advance that blowing everyone up wouldn’t work, so he’d have to shoot them down one by one with a missile. In Shanghai, Cruise makes a great leap from skyscraper to skyscraper and then to the ground, although the process of identifying the “rabbit’s foot” was glossed over. The run through the neighborhoods of Shanghai’s private sector, dictated by a spotter from New York, is well-conceived. Laundry is touchingly drying at the entrance to the wolf’s den. In short, when the action flourishes, questions about logic disappear, but overall, the plot leaves you… It leaves you like a father abandoning his own son.
Before the credits, the global villain Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) tortures a beaten Ethan Hunt and his young wife terribly regarding a certain “rabbit’s foot.” The wife is threatened with a lethal outcome before her young husband’s eyes, who also has a bomb implanted in his skull. After the credits, they’re only announcing their engagement, and you somehow expect surprises. When the beginning is a flashback, you naturally expect the imposed connection between the past and the future to start changing before your eyes. Alas, there will be practically no surprises, as you immediately understand that a lethal outcome for the husband and wife is fundamentally impossible. How they do it is just details, but even with unpredictable details, this plot is sparse. Cruise is simply called away from his engagement to a mission, and after some tedious fussing – why fuss, it’s clear why the movie was made – he flies with his team to Berlin, where that very global villain is torturing a compromised undercover agent. They need to try to save the agent, then catch the villain, then, so the movie doesn’t end in fifteen minutes, the villain must escape and do what? – that’s right, start a terrible revenge on the hero, using his wife for these purposes, of course. A certain “rabbit’s foot” might emerge here as the main “villainous” characteristic, but if the screenwriters are too lazy to decipher it, then there’s no need to decipher it. The extreme degree of conventionality is already clear, although it’s unclear what justifies it. Where’s the soap, where’s the washcloth, where is it? Although, yes, there might also be a traitor, an undercover agent in the heroic ranks themselves. How many of them have fallen into this earth. But what will the hero do for the rest of the hour? That’s right, imitate a hundred brothers of the same blood type, who, in fact, have long moved into the plots of group “B” movies to save wives from the clutches of global villains.
Budget vs. Script
Just as Harrison Ford was saved from group “B” by computer hackers in the similar recent “Firewall” (2006), Tom Cruise is saved, of course, by a $150 million budget. When it’s visible, it’s not boring. Only against its background is it even more visible how lazy the screenwriters were in eliminating the obvious “group B” absurdity and how disastrous the “family” idea is for the brand. If the agents are so cool, why does Cruise suddenly have so many emotions when the villain refuses to urgently reveal his villainous secrets during interrogation? If the whole team is more composed than Cruise, why is he their commander? If the Impossible Missions Force is so technically advanced, why doesn’t it provide a basic “protection program” for the members of their families? Why doesn’t the wife’s cell phone “answer” when, without any Agency, even we here can have voice communication with our husbands on our cell phones? Why did the traitor even get involved with Cruise’s team if every step only led to exposure? Finally, why are all the preparations and motivations in all the action episodes maximally compressed and dynamic, but as soon as it’s “sorting things out” – lights out? Hasn’t “Mission: Impossible,” following in the footsteps of the Bond franchise, noticed that it has existed for half a century only on humor and details? Where does the serial aesthetic suddenly come from in the middle of the action? Imagine Cruise, shooting back from a parachute, falling in the middle of a crowded highway, dropping the “rabbit’s foot,” darting between speeding cars, suddenly a jeep with his own team miraculously runs into him, and here’s the conversation: “Get in, they’re already approaching. – (Pause) Who? – (Pause) The guards. (Pause) They’re clearly not in a good mood.” After this phenomenal “who?” Cruise will be opening the door for a long time. Director J.J. Abrams suddenly remembered his serial past under the car. But it seems that in places, he really got hit on the head.
Overall Impression
“Mission: Impossible III” suffers from catastrophic unevenness. The presence of cool action requires a complete re-editing.
Devoted fans of Tom Cruise may not be upset overall, but for the rest, the more he buries himself in the Scientology religion, the less chance Ethan Hunt has of jumping to James Bond or even to his angelic shoulder.