Mission: Impossible III (2006) Review

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Mission: Impossible III follows agent Ethan Hunt, who, after one of his trainees is killed undercover, becomes embroiled in a global conspiracy involving the IMF and a biological weapon only known as the “rabbit’s foot”. 

After a pretty dogshit showing in MI2, my hopes for this one weren’t looking too good, especially with J.J. Abrams at the helm. Luckily, Mission: Impossible III ditches the silly clichés of the second, and makes a slight shift more in line with the series’ name, turning Ethan and his crew into more of a special forces unit than genuine spies (which I’ll take over human wrecking balls). Going the route of most grizzled action stars (even though the series is only a decade old at this point), Hunt has finally settled down, seeking a more peaceful lifestyle after his retirement from the IMF. And while that’s a move I’d expect much later in the series, it does something interesting for this film in that it forces Ethan back into the game and creates some genuine stakes in one of his most dangerous missions yet. 

Once again, much of this film gets bogged down with plot jargon that particularly doesn’t matter, considering we never actually find out what the “rabbit’s foot” is (though they throw it around a ton). So while the action is good, in a Michael Bay Transformers kinda way, it’s not given any favors in the story department, as Ethan is framed for the millionth time (you’d think they’d trust the guy by now), in what feels like a slightly elevated version of the plot of the first, with the added danger of throwing Ethan’s wife in the mix. 

We get a riveting cast as well, starring Keri Russell, Jonathon Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q, Michelle Monaghan, Laurence Fishburne, Simon Pegg, Billy Crudup, Ving Rhames, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Tom Cruise. Cruise injects a much needed element of humanity to Hunt in this outing, breaking him down a bit, particularly in the face of Hoffman, who delivers quite possibly the most menacing performance of his career. 

Mission: Impossible III, directed by J.J. Abrams, keeps with the trend of being as generic as possible, though it’s a little less tongue-in-cheek as whatever the hell John Woo was doing, lending itself to being a fairly decent action blockbuster when the dust settles. 

7.5/10