Mission: Impossible III

A vast improvement on the lacklustre second installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, this film isn't without its flaws yet these never really get in the way of an enjoyable couple of hours. It's by turns daft (in the best tradition of Bond films) and surprisingly tense - unlike its predecessors - but is still let down by blockbuster conventions refusing to allow the death of a hero.

The writing is infinitely better than previously: Tom Cruise actually having to go beyond acting Tom Cruise while Philip Seymour Hoffman's credible villain is a jolt of adrenaline that does the film as a whole no end of good. It's a shame parts of plot are so shamelessly pinched from elsewhere (the Rabbit's Foot is a textbook Hitchcockian MacGuffin) as a couple of set-pieces - the entire Vatican sequence and Hoffman's subsequent escape - are tremendous, suggestive of a much better film.

Now is it too much to hope that the inevitable next installment dares live up to what Mission: Impossible III promises but fails to live up to?

(21st May 2006)

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

Reviews A-Z