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mission: impossible iii
After watching Mission: Impossible III last night, I have a few questions. I’ll start with the most innocuous one. Why, in movies like this one, is the girlfriend/wife always a nurse or a doctor? The Sum of All Fears. Patriot Games. The Day After Tomorrow. I had never wondered this before. I saw the movie with J. last night, and asked her the same question. She thought about it, and during the third act turned to me and said, “I figured it out. It’s so the girl can save her man.” My other question is one that I’m embarrassed to admit I should have asked myself after watching the first Mission: Impossible: Why, in a business such as his, is Ethan Hunt running around using his (ostensibly) real name in both real life and while on covert operations? I haven’t seen too many movies in the theatre this year. There hasn’t been anything compelling enough to drag me out of the house, I guess. I’m usually always game for a good Pixar flick, but with every new trailer for Cars, my interest sagged a little more. With Bryan Singer off of the third (and hopefully final) X-Men movie, I wrote it off. (Perhaps on DVD.) And I loathed Dan Brown’s novel, so why on earth would I spend ten bucks to live through The Da Vinci Code again? So M:I3 it was. Generally speaking, I hate movies that can be reduced to alphanumeric acronyms. In the third (and hopefully final) Impossible, the concept of ensemble missions is reintroduced. At least, that’s what every critic seemed to say. And it’s true, Ethan Hunt is working with a team again, much like he did in the first movie, and exactly like he didn’t do in the second. There are big names in the opening credits. But it’s far from an ensemble movie, which could have been a genuinely interesting take on the series. Ethan’s team is left doing fringe work, existing just on-camera enough that you know they’re there, even if you don’t really know why. Moral support? Plot devices?
The team is made up of three loyal operatives: Some Lady (Maggie Q), who gets to dress up and drive a fancy car; Some Dude (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who can fly a helicopter straight up without losing his passengers. The third is Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames), who gets reduced to a buddy role; his part wasn’t much bigger in the first movie, but it was a little juicier. These three are basically cutouts, and, as such, are more or less wasted. Midway through the movie, Ethan Hunt is infiltrating a building solo; as he’s occupied, the camera turns to Some Lady and Some Dude, who are waiting for him in the car. Some Lady whispers a Chinese prayer; Some Dude asks what it is, and she tells him a story about her childhood pet. I turned to J. and whispered, “Oh, look. It’s the character development scene.” One moment of development does not a character make, particularly when it’s so apparent that the writer’s heart isn’t in it. A moment later we get an explosion of glass, a high-speed chase, lots of gunfire, etc. All that was missing was a quick title card reading WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR MOVIE.
In a cast made up of the aforementioned names, as well as Billy Crudup, Simon Pegg and Laurence Fishburne, he who fares best is Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s almost a time-honored tradition in Hollywood to follow up a dramatic, Best Actor/Actress Oscar-winning movie with a pure popcorn movie. Consider: after winning the big statuette, Halle Berry did Die Another Day, the four thousandth James Bond flick. Jamie Foxx made Stealth. Julia Roberts, The Mexican. Holly Hunter, The Firm. Nicolas Cage, The Rock. And so on. Hoffman’s no exception to the rule; he’s following his Best Actor win for Capote with a villainous role in one of the biggest popcorn franchises of the last decade. But his performance is a clear exception. He is menacing in a way we’ve never before seen. When he’s off-screen, he is always looming over the action. He transforms a disposable bad guy into something more. And with every scene Hoffman’s in, he elevates Mission: Impossible III to moments of excellence. He’s so good that even Tom Cruise, in their scenes together, has to up his game to keep up. This is the mark of a great actor, I think: that by your very nature you force those around you to give more. Don’t get me wrong, though. The movie is a ridiculous spectacle. It’s a little too long, and the theme music is all wrong this time around, and it’s filled with so many shaky camera shots, quick cuts and fast edits that it gave me a headache and made me feel like my dad. Also, even if you’re not an Alias fan — I’ve never seen it — you might catch yourself thinking that you’re watching a really long episode of the show, with many, many guest stars. Ultimately it’s a little more straightforward than the first movie in the series, and less orgasmically action-propelled than the second. In any case, it’s worth watching, if only to see Tom Cruise pretending to work out complicated mathematical equations on a window with a grease pen, a la A Beautiful Mind. I think I actually chuckled.
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June 16th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Great review! I have to admit that I *felt* as though I was enjoying the movie while I sat there…but on the ride home I just got angrier and angrier at how foolish the whole thing was.
I had a very similar thought about Hunt’s wife - what if she was a teacher or a botanist? Does that mean he just gives up and dies at the end?
And although I thought Hoffman was terrific, my favorite non-logic of the movie was this: how can he be such a badass that he refuses to talk while BEING DANGLED OUT THE BOTTOM OF AN IN-FLIGHT PLANE, yet when you put a gun to his head and order him to read from a card, he’ll do it, no questions asked. It doesn’t occur to him that, because the good guy is compelling him to do this, maybe he should refuse to do it?
June 16th, 2006 at 9:57 am
A good question. My opinion: Davian was so taken aback by the sight of a man who looked just like him putting a gun to his head that he complied.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
I think that to get the business loans from creditors you ought to present a good reason. However, once I have got a student loan, just because I was willing to buy a building.