A Cinephile’s Critiques

Directed by J.J. Abrams, 2006 (Color, 7:3, Surround, 125′)
Starring Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, and Michelle Monaghan

Mission: Impossible III could have been subtitled Attack of the MacGuffins, if this movie series used subtitles. It doesn’t, though, and perhaps that’s just as well because, despite all the embellishments, the third movie in this series is really just the first two movies pared down to their essentials.

This time around, Ethan Hunt is married, and while you might think this would change things for someone who has spent his time globe-hopping under aliases and blowing up things while people shoot lots and lots of bullets at him, it really doesn’t. There’s a cute sequence with his wife early in the film, where we learn about a unique, and, as it will turn out, useful skill he’s picked up since the last installment, and there are a few lines of dialog about how Impossible Mission Force agents really shouldn’t get married, but, well, it’s all just a MacGuffin. The marriage only raises the stakes for Hunt, and gives him a weak spot for the villain to exploit.

This film, like its predecessors, has the trappings of a caper film, but, really, they’re just MacGuffins too. The various breaking-and-entering, impersonation, and theft schemes aren’t really planned and played-out elaborately enough to make them central to the movie. They’re there to add a dash of suspense to the fascinating travelogue of exotic locations our heroes travel to.

And why, exactly, do they travel in cargo jets, to places like the Vatican, or elaborate subterranean office complexes, or abandoned warehouses filled with high-tech weapons, or the back streets and skyscrapers of Shanghai? Well, they’re trying to track down the Rabbit’s Foot. This is, we learn, a gadget with a biohazard symbol painted on its side. And that’s about all we learn about it. So, yes, it’s a MacGuffin too.

Well, if Mission: Impossible III isn’t really about people with improbably hazardous jobs getting married, and it’s not really about the habits and character of far-flung locales, and it’s not really about a biological weapon, then what is it about?

If you’ve seen the first two movies, you know the answer to that one. It’s about a cold-blooded villain, a tenacious high-tech hero, and lots of very impressive stunts. And this time around, it works, and it works well. The stunts are stunning, and while they might not be particularly believable, they’re not as ludicrous as they were the last time around.

These stunts are meticulously weaved into the framework of the various MacGuffins and everything is beautifully filmed in a vivid chiaroscuro of architecture, faces, and color. Want to know what’s going on? Just look at the lights. Lively greens and golds mean Hunt is in the field and another stunt is coming up soon, and soothing blue tells you he’s back at his home base cooking up the next stage of the plot.

In movies with lots of misdirection, like this one, and lots of things flying through the air in unlikely ways, like this one, it’s important to have a nice simple theme – whether it’s good guy vs. bad guy or green setting vs. blue setting – to hold everything together, and this one does.