Say goodbye to movies for Grown-ups

for the next 3 months as this past friday marked the beginning of the Summer blockbusters for 2006.

Kicking it off is Tom Cruise in the Third movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise, with the aptly original title Mission: Impossible III (for the purposes of this review, I shall now refer to this movie as M:I-III, which will save on typing). M:I-III is better than John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2, but doesn't hold a candle to Brian De Palma's Mission Impossible 1

Unlike the past 2 Mission: Impossible movies, which relied on a Impossible Missions, and lots of action, this time round director JJ Abrams (LOST) decided to try and give this movie more of a "personal and intimate feeling" by having a look a Ethan Hunt's (Tom Cruise) personal life. We get to see Ethan at home, his friends, his Fiancée (played by Michelle Monaghan), a nurse who thinks Ethan studies traffic patterns for a living.

Ethan is trying to start a new life with his Fiancée, Julia, which means his has to face his real Mission Impossible that every man must face: living happile ever after with the woman he loves, he isn't a secret agent trying to save the world, he's a man trying to save his marriage.

Problems begin for the two when Ethan, who now trains agents, is lured back into the field when one of his star pupils is kidnapped by an evil arms dealer named Davian (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman). How does a guy who studies traffic patterns for a living explain late night phone calls, then explain to his fiancée right after he hangs up the phone why he has to suddenly leave for 2 or 3 DAYS because there's an emergency in the traffic department?

The other major difference between this movie and the other two is that those movies actually had missions that were considered, well, impossible. This time round, there are 3 missions.. one in Germany which could be considered Mission: Easy, Penetrating the Vatican (Mission: Not so easy), and the last one that finally takes place in the last 45 minutes or so of the movie that even starts to come close to a Mission: Impossible. In between are the usual uninspired explosions, car chases, and other mindless loud stunt sequences that border on the edge of sensory overload, and are the usual staple of a sumer action movie.

There are quite a few problems I have with this movie..
1) You would think in this day and age, the tired "Secret Agent" genre could be given a fresh shot in the arm with everything thats happening in the world. There could be NEW villians to face now, what with the war on terror. M:I-III doesn't touch on any of this and plays it safe with a what is now a generic villain (Hoffman showed more of an evil nature playing Truman Capote than he does in this movie).

2) The overall problem I find with this entire franchise is Ethan Hunt. He has a private life now, but no personality. He's just one of those summer movie heros that is boring unless he's being chased, or leaping off tall buildings (not in a single bound, mind you.. that's coming June 30th.. but I'm getting ahead of myself). Unlike James Bond where we like the action, but we also admire his lifestyle.. The cars, the women, everything. For all we know Ethan Hunt drives a VW Beetle to work. Sure, it's great to see Ethan run (which he does a LOT of), but do you want to be like him?

So, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to sit through the first 85 minutes of this 130 minute movie to see the actual 45 minutes of a film that this movie should have been the enire running time.

M:I-III - C+