Mission: Impossible III (2006)

When J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost) took the director's chair for this sequel—becoming the third director in as many films—he said his goal was to flesh out Ethan's character. As a co-writer for this film, Abrams wanted to show Ethan not just as an agent in the field, but as a man. And like Abrams has done with Lost and early Alias seasons, providing characters' real lives to the events around them adds spark, heart and intensity. It raises the stakes. Now, the risk isn't just the release of foreign operatives. Or the spreading of a virus. What is at risk is a person. Ethan has a home, a steady love and even a dog. He has passions, regrets, and—most importantly—he has things to lose.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) gets a life … and a girl (Michelle Monaghan)

When an action script successfully gets you to care about the stakes, it doesn't really matter what the threat is. It doesn't really matter what the bad guy wants. M:I3 knows this. And it works. The plot is bare bones: Bad guy wants something. Good guy doesn't want him to have it. What that something is and why it is desired is irrelevant. The bad guy is just there to set the stage. Instead, the human drama takes center stage. There's very little plot or commentary to the film other than simple survival and getting the job done. The movie makes some risky—but good—plot choices at the end. Abrams quickly wraps up story threads and then focuses on what matters: Ethan's life.

The action is relentless from beginning to end

The newly engaged Ethan has now left field work to train new agents. He's celebrating his engagement to Julia (Michelle Monaghan) with friends and relatives when the Impossible Missions Force asks him for help. There's an emergency. A young agent (Keri Russell) whom Ethan trained has been kidnapped while tailing a major weapons provider, Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). The rescue puts Ethan and his IMF team into a dangerous battle with Davian over the mysterious Rabbit's Foot. The cat-and-mouse game casts questions on where loyalties lie, puts Julia in danger, and spans the globe from Virginia to Vatican City to China.

Saying anything more about the plot spoils the fun. It may be a simple story, but there are twists, turns and surprises. It's not complicated. It's not entirely original. But it is a well-structured and intense ride. And the bottom line is how much fun it is. Abrams was the right man for the job because he understands what the franchise is about (after all, his Alias has many times felt like Mission: Impossible): fun, espionage, double-crosses, red herrings, and thrills. The movie doesn't take itself seriously, and even seems to wink at the audience a few times. There are big laughs, rockin' action set pieces, and smart uses of the spy genre and the franchise's history. For instance, while the other two movies used plenty of Mission: Impossible masks and costumes, this chapter pulls a Batman Begins by showing us the details of how the technology is used. The team builds a mask in the field and we see the agent's transformation—in both how he looks and sounds.

Hunt's mission is to rescue a fellow agent, played here by Keri Russell

Because M:I3 trumps up the film's heart and fun with interesting characters, genuinely funny comic relief (Alias fans will enjoy a Marshall-like tech guy), and characters to care about, it can also afford to raise the tension level. And does it ever. The first three minutes of the film are a shocking and intense shot of adrenaline—and it never really lets up. The film is fast moving, relentless, gripping, dramatic. At times, there's almost a horror-like tension and grittiness. There is an energy here that was largely missing from the previous M:I movies. It crackles and simmers during crisp dialogue scenes, thanks to skilled note-perfect acting of Cruise, Hoffman, Billy Crudup, and Laurence Fishburne. Some of the talking scenes are more thrilling and taut than lesser films' action sequences.

And then, the energy explodes during the frenetic and exciting action sequences. Gone are the fancy, poetic mid-air motorcycle duels. Instead, the action pieces use very little CGI and lots of quick cuts, tight framing and real stunts. They feel more real and in your face. When cars hit each other, you feel the collision. When someone is coming around the corner, you want to lean forward to peek. There were times I felt like I needed to duck.

What is ironic is that the film's best attribute, its intensity, also leads to its biggest weakness. It may sound odd, but just too much happens. Too much is demanded of the viewer and it begins to push you to the brink of checking out at times. When it is over, it feels like the movie is much longer than 126 minutes.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is cold and cruel as the villain Owen Davian

And there are some problems with suspending disbelief, even though you'd expect some of that in a movie like this. Still, I found most of it easy to swallow, thanks to the tone Abrams has created. There's a sense of realism in even the crazily improbably action sets. But then there are little things that make you go, "Oh, really?" For instance, Ethan's IMF team sets up an elaborate stunt—that necessitates finding lots of rope, a winch, a baseball pitching machine, and a fancy new outfit for Ethan—all in under two hours. It took me longer than that to write this review.

But none of this ruins the fun. Abrams and Cruise deserve credit for breathing life and heart into a franchise with lots of potential. Signing solid actors (especially Hoffman as the cold and brutal bad guy), ramping up the idea of "team" among the IMFers, and using human drama to carry the script successfully adds life to the mission.