Mission: Impossible III is the feature directorial debut of JJ Abrams, creator of cult TV shows Lost and Alias.
Tom Cruise reprises his role as top secret agent, Ethan Hunt. He's given up his field job to train new secret agents. Which means he finally has the time to fall in love – with Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and set up house.
But when his protégé, Lindsey (Keri Russell) is taken hostage by ruthless, Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), Hunt is forced to return to the thick of the action.
Julia thinks that her new beau is attending conferences on traffic management, but Hunt is in fact entangled in the hunt to track Davian down. Eventually, Davian escapes Hunt's clutches and retaliates by kidnapping Julia. Hunt's team, including Ving Rhames who returns once more as the computer expert, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Hong Kong star, Maggie Q, skip from America, to the Vatican, to Shanghai in a race to save her and to locate the mysterious 'Rabbit's Foot', possibly a chemical device that could cause world devastation.
So really they are out to save the girl and the world!
Mission: Impossible III moves at breakneck pace with all the requisite stunts that defy the laws of probability. What's new this time round is that Hunt must now balance work and home, and Cruise manages to make his character a little less perfect and more sympathetic.
He actually gets to act as well as jump off buildings. Abrams is a good choice of director and he's cleverly injected more humour into the franchise and his direction is as slick as his TV shows.
Although Mission: Impossible III is the Tom Cruise show as expected, Abrams, who co-wrote the script doesn't concentrate so much on Hunt/Cruise as a solo operator, as the previous two films. His approach favours more of a team effort for Hunt and his band of helpers, so we're treated to a little more character development from the supporting cast.
I particularly enjoyed Hoffman – he's a brilliant baddie, perfect as a cold-blooded psychopath and lights up the screen. Oh and watch out Jackie Chan, apparently Tom does his own stunts.
