I have seen the previous two Mission: Impossible flicks at the cinema. The first effort by Brian De Palma was, I thought, a well constructed, though confusing and unevenly paced movie that had a nice espionage tone to it. The second, by John Woo (which went under the working title of �How many doves can we fit into one scene?"), was fairly lacklustre in storytelling and came across as an emotionless, hollow action movie. I am very glad to say that the balance seems to have been reached, and the bar raised by J. J. Abrams and Co.
I always feel bad by giving too much of the plot away, suffice to say most of you will have an idea of what it is about from the trailer and other promotional material. What J. J. Abrams has done with this movie is to learn from the mistakes of the previous instalments and build upon it by giving us so much more. Brain De Palma and John Woo looked at the familiar format of the original TV show and thought �okay, that�s what I have to work with, and this is what the audience will want and expect�. Mr Abrams instead decided to use his gifted storytelling brain.
In M:I3, we get to see Ethan Hunt (Cruise) settling down with his fianc� to try to lead a normal life; we get to see the inner workings of IMF, we get to see that when things go bad � they go bad, and when things go right � they also have consequences, and we get to see that even the most highly trained humans make mistakes. What is also nice to see is what we don�t actually see. For instance we don�t see a typical maniacal villain rant and rave like Dr Evil for most of the movie. Iin this case the villain of the piece, Owen Davian (Hoffman), is an elusive, shadowy character that we only get to see when the plot calls for it � the focus is on the heroes of the story and how they try to overcome the odds. You can see that J. J. clearly has things under control in this movie.
Tom Cruise clearly enjoys playing Ethan Hunt and revels in this new opportunity to show the characters depth. Philip Seymour Hoffman is simply an astonishing actor; to me he has all the makings of being one of the true Hollywood all-time greats. The supporting cast is a nice mix of well known and not-so well known faces and all give solid performances, in particular Simon Pegg who more than holds his own, and even steals scenes from Cruise and Rhames � good for you mate! For just over two hours we get to enjoy a beautifully crafted, well paced action thriller headed up by a brilliant cast. The drama, the comedy, the action and the suspense is so well balanced that for once I truly got carried along for the ride, and what a ride! The (many) action set pieces are brilliantly executed apart from a little too much use of the �shaky cam� which makes it hard to follow combined with the fast editing.
I would say this movie is almost flawless, if only for the very few clich�d lines and scenes that upset the tone and balance of the movie, then this would be perfect summer blockbuster stuff. Keep it up J. J. � you have great things ahead of you! |
