Mission Impossible 3

I thought this film opened strong, but sort of petered out towards the end. JJ Abrams is simply okay in the director's chair (but he really doesn't have the directorial flair of either de Palma or Woo), there were sequences that were just awkward to watch in terms of the action flow, and it still had that Alias feel to many of the setups. One of JJ's favorite storytelling tics is to start out from a scene in the 3rd act with a "tension-filled" interrogation, and then roll back to the beginning, and while it works in TV, it sucks out a lot of the dramatic tension (for me) for most of the 2nd and 3rd act.

Ethan runs, and runs alot, and there were times were we didn't need to see all that running, but we saw it anyway. The characterization scenes played out less convincing than much of JJ's TV work. I don't think he's figured out how to truly compress characterizations within film vs. the arc from episodic TV. It's a different shorthand cinematic language that isn't quite within JJ's grasp yet.

But even with the shortcomings, there are quite a few daring stunts and elaborate ruses riffing on the classic MI themes, but even those scenes were undercut by the story structure (a more linear approach gives more opportunity to amp up the dramatic tension and thrills along the lines of "will he or won't he be able to do the impossible to complete legs of the mission").

It's easily worth a matinee for the amount of action showcased in the film.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.