“It’s about a man, who’s a spy, who’s in love, who gets called to duty to go rescue a fellow operative and things unravel from there in a way he doesn’t expect.” JJ Abrams there, director of Mission: Impossible III, talking about the “simple” story behind his flash, bang, wallop and wallop again blockbuster – the most relentless, deafening ride of summer 2006.
And that’s one of the key pleasures of M:I:III – particularly when compared to the murky first in the franchise and the chuck-in-everything/hope-some-of-it-sticks approach of the second. Taken on its own merits, away from the tabloid hoohah surrounding the iconic star/producer, M:I:III is about as entertaining a night of popcorn-gnawing action as you could possibly wish for.
Completely, utterly, shamelessly unremitting, it tells of our hero Ethan Hunt (Cruise), in love with the very lovely Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and taking a backseat from his IMF missions to train newbies in how to save the world from unsmiling terrorist types. That is until one of his charges, Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), is kidnapped – pitching Hunt and his crack team of sharpshooters, bullet-dodgers and thrill-seekers (Ving Rhames, Maggie Q, Jonathan Rhys Meyers) into a globe-trotting battle of wits against über-baddie Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in pursuit of mysterious MacGuffin, the “Rabbit’s Foot”. What follows is an explosion-after-explosion, thrill-after-thrill, no-flab, no-time-wasted succession of action set-pieces, where any plot bridges are piffling pinpricks in an orgy of increasingly outrageous action.
Whatever you do, don’t watch for sense or resolution. If you engage brain, the True Lies apeing (Julia is ignorant of Ethan’s line of work), the Rabbit’s Foot thing (so what the hell is it?) and the way that IMF bod Musgrave (Billy Crudup) takes only about an hour to fly from Virginia to Shanghai may irk. But such grumbles miss the point. Abrams’ feature debut’s mission statement is to excite audiences as much as the franchise visibly does its star. In the plentiful, all-encompassing Making Of documentaries and featurettes, Cruise is forever grinning, smiling, hugging and laughing. He exudes energy both on set and on camera, with Rhys Meyers revealing in the 20-minute love-in Inside The IMF that the livewire was so ecstatic at the start of filming that he took to humming the “Dum dum DUM DUM dum dum DUM DUM” theme while speeding down Rome’s Tiber with his IMF gang. You’ve got to hand it to Cruise: the man does nothing by half.
DVD Extras:
Director and star commentary
Deleted scenes
Interview
Three Making Of documentaries
Three Making Of featurettes
Promo campaign featurette
Cruise awards reels
Boundless enthusiasm permeates the extras as TC, the master of hyperbole, likes – no, loves – absolutely everything and enjoys nothing better than to throw himself into the film’s nitty-gritty, praising cast and crew and even eulogising the film’s sickly, slo-mo final scene.
Take the Missing: Action doc, part-hosted by engaging stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong. Explored in detail, it reveals how Cruise put himself so far on the line for so many of the movie’s action pieces that his stand-in was relegated to shuffling around on the sidelines, munching doughnuts.
Then there’s his ferocious passion for the (admittedly impressive) “Pre-Visualisation” techniques used to computer-plan major set-pieces. And his near-hysterical view of Simon Pegg (who appears in a brief, perfectly entertaining cameo as a geeky tech-head) – “Did you ever see Shaun Of The Dead? Phew! That guy’s brilliant!”
His co-commentary with Abrams includes a particularly ecstatic gush over the “physical and emotional geography” of one of M:I:III’s showpiece scenes – a bloody big helicopter chase through a wind farm. It’s hard to believe one person can be so terribly, terribly excited. Laurence Fishburne, meanwhile, sauntering through the feature as hardass IMF honcho Brassel, “Just came to have a good time”, and amid all the ‘I love this guy!’-style horseplay, his understated presence is most welcome. An even calmer – and sadly underused – presence is Hoffman; brilliant as the ruthless, one-track minded baddie (“Do you have a wife? Because if you do, I’m gonna find her... hurt her... make her bleed... call out your name...”).
Still, this is Mission: Impossible III, Tom Cruise’s film. That much is clear from the billboard alone – with Cruise’s name almost conquering the movie title for font size. Sure, there’s excitement in the fact that Lost boy Abrams is directing, but the swagger is all the star’s and the movie perfectly reflects his pathological lust for glory. For both film and extras, the pure Bang! Boom! adrenaline rush is hard to beat, and Cruise’s character/producer role regularly blurs. For all the lush-gush backslappery, there is something infectious about the oh-so-focused star. And as an insight into super-scale summer blockbusting, the extras are terrific (for an idea of the quality, watch the four exclusive docs on the Total Film Collectors’ M:I:III DVD free with UK copies of this issue – a third disc to complement the double-discer available in shops).
Check out Launching The Mission, a fast-forward whirl through the movie’s promotional campaign. Black-clad and totally up for it, Cruise hits overdrive in a motorbike, helicopter, fire engine, speed boat and subway train as he visits four premieres in four hours. He’s slightly miraculous, but barmy – laughing at a fan’s “You Can Jump On My Couch Anytime!” sign without any irony or shame. If punters really do want more rugged, self-contained – even subdued – action heroes (Bourne, new Bond...) this certainly won’t do. You won’t see Damon or Craig cavorting in a spangly suit at the Tokyo premiere, dancing like your dad, knee-drumming out of time...
But Cruise doesn’t do restrained. As the last great, living-it, loving-it movie star, M:I:III and Ethan Hunt are his perfect foil. Turn on, tune in, watch the fireworks...
