Film is Pwn

I skipped Mission Impossible 3 in theaters. I skipped it at the rental store. I skipped over buying it on several occasions. I had been told it was good, but I assumed it was all lies.

I had reason to think it was lies; I had, after all, seen Mission Impossible 2. I finally caved and sat down to watch it about a week ago. About five minutes in I started to think that perhaps M:I-2 had just been a bad memory, perhaps it never happened, because this sure felt like an extension of the first and very enjoyable Mission: Impossible. The question really is … what happened?

For a good film one usually starts with a good script or screenplay. A director may make adjustments along the way to fit with their vision, but a good screenplay is critical. For Mission: Impossible 2 however this just didn’t happen. Robert Towne, the writer credited with the screenplay, comments that a majority of the script was centered around action sequences requested by John Woo, long time fun-bad movie maker. Fortunately, John Woo didn’t make Mission: Impossible 3, JJ Abrams of Lost did.

The film opens in the incredibly exciting fashion of Abrams. He loves to look forward with introductions and while I might be inclined to think that this was a little out of place and I might have preferred to not see this scene until later in the movie when it fell in place chronologically it was powerful. Philip Seymour Hoffman put on one of his best performances in my opinion as a staggeringly arrogant and cold villain. His role beckons back to some of the great movie villains including Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lecter.

I really enjoyed the first Mission: Impossible film. I liked the intrigue of it and I liked Ethan Hunt as a character. This latest in the series feels a lot like the first one only a bit more purposeful, and a lot less wishful. Abrams really seemed to want to pull back the idea to a team that gets the job done. A weakness of Mission: Impossible 2 was that it was basically a one man show. John Woo seems to disregard the idea that heroes need help and the movie suffered from that.

From the opening sequence of the movie we get the idea that Ethan’s in love and Hoffman’s villain, Owen Davian, uses it to his advantage. When we cut back a week or two earlier we find that Ethan wants to stay away from field work. He’s getting married. He’s trying to settle down. A young protégé of his gets captured in the field and this is just enough to be pulled back into action.

The rescue sequence feels more like a special forces op than a spies, which is good. There’s an absurd escape scene involving helicopters (what Mission: Impossible movies have with insane helicopter sequences I don’t know…) that leads to more questions and more doubts. The intrigue begins and Ethan has found himself effectively trapped on assignment.

I won’t spoil things any farther. The movie holds up as a story and is tied together with some good action and fun spy toys. There are three writing credits here, one of them being Abrams (who also has a writing credit on Armageddon). The director as one of the writers isn’t usually something I would see as a positive but in this case it works well enough. This is currently my favorite JJ Abrams work and not being a fan of Lost I’m not sure what that says to everyone. That’s not to say though that this movie is perfect. Really, it’s very Abrams and that’s not a bad thing.

I’ve recently rewatched the movies in the Mission:Impossible franchise and this is the best. I would say it’s only the best because of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jon Voigts villain from the first just wasn’t evil enough. I never found myself afraid of him. The whole movie he was simply the guy that Ethan would have to capture. Hoffman’s Davian though was ruthless, cold, sadistic. He was frightening. The heat is a very important aspect of a spy movie and Philip Seymour Hoffman was on fire.

This movie falls just between Buy-It and Rent-It to me. While I know I’ll watch it many times over to see Hoffman’s villainry, I understand not everyone will. You should see this movie though and remember. There was no Mission:Impossible 2. The marketing guys just got confused when naming that John Woo movie which messed everything up.