Mission: Impossible III

There is a lot to like about “Mission: Impossible III”. As I’ve said before- a film is nothing without a good villain. Well, Owen Davian is a good villain. He’s cold, intelligent and calculating- something oft missing from boomfests. I think most of this is down to the combination of J.J.”I’m responsible for Lost” Abrams’ directing and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s skill. Ironically, because Davian is a such a strong character, it highlights the blandness of the character of Ethan Hunt. He’s just one of those boring, all-American, supposed badasses travelling worldwide, fucking stuff up just so Americans are free to eat their own body weight on a daily basis.

The action sequences are also of note as many of them are impressive. The bridge sequence, for example, is extremely well done. It’s a shame then that the main letdown of the film is the fairly average cast (with the exception of Simon Pegg) and the story isn’t anything new. I knew after the first ten minutes that some kind of double-cross/twist was inevitable as the fucking tide. The one thing I do like about the story is the MacGuffin (i.e. the thing that drives the plot) is never actually explained. We get a name (the Rabbit’s Foot), some brief glances of it and a speculative guess by Simon Pegg’s character, but that’s about it. It’s a smart move as the convention these days is to explain everything so the audience don’t have to strain their apparently feeble minds guessing.