M:I:3

Reviews:

Roger Ebert has clearly seen too many movies -- too many computerized ones of the action sort at any rate -- and he has become bored. The Chicago Sun-Times critic is certainly bored with the ones titled Mission: Impossible and starring Tom Cruise, and he says as much in his review of the film: "Either you want to see mindless action and computer-generated sequences executed with breakneck speed and technical precision, or you do not. I am getting to the point where I don't much care. There is a theory that action is exciting and dialogue is boring. My theory is that variety is exciting and sameness is boring. Modern high-tech action sequences are just the same damn thing over and over again." Numerous other critics have seen the same films that Ebert has and have reached similar conclusions about Mission: Impossible 3. Bruce Newman in the San Jose Mercury News writes that "many of the action set pieces fall strangely flat, and Cruise's attempt to sprint through every scene makes him look more like a wind-up doll than a recognizable human being." Several of the films suggest that M:I 3 is not much more interesting than a standard-issue Alias, the TV series that the movie's director, J.J. Abrams, created, only with more explosions. Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun concludes: "It's Alias all over again, without the complex rooting interest." Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe also observes that some of what he calls the "ludicrous" situations set up in the film "just seems commonplace now -- thanks in large part to Abrams and his TV shows." (Abrams also created ABC's Lost.) Still, the film receives quite a bit of applause. Claudia Puig in USA Today writes that "Abrams may have achieved the nearly impossible: taking a predictable, tired franchise and putting his signature style on it so that it feels fresh and cool." Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times praises Abrams for coming up with "a solidly crafted entertainment, a diversion that really diverts once it gets down to business." Bob Longino in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the director accomplished his mission, producing "a solid enough popcorn movie, firmly popped and professionally packaged to kick off the summer season." John Anderson in Newsday, makes a similar point, calling M:I 3 "the perfect summer movie -- fast-paced, action-packed, emotionally engaging (without demanding too much investment), and pure, unadulterated eye candy. Whattya want for 10 bucks? A quarter tank of gas?" Indeed, says Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News, audiences will get what they pay for. "The plot makes no sense ... But logic and humanity would probably gum up the (fire)works." And surely, this movie is not aimed at moviegoers' minds so much as it is at their wallets. As Lou Lumenick in the New York Post predicts, the film "will probably hit the sweet spot at the box-office -- and give Cruise a whole new reason to start jumping on couches."