Mission: Accomplished

I hate to do it, but here I’m again writing yet another movie review. Maybe some time I will get to write a real blog (and not a review). So anyways, here’s my review of the much awaited summer action thriller of the year: M:I-3.“What’s the matter, Mr. Hunt? You seem to be upset!”

“Katridge, you have never seen me upset”. (M:I-1)

That’s the point where our super spy Ethan Hunt set on a series of adventures in true sense. And M:I-3 proves that it hasn’t ended yet.And this time Ethan Hunt is more upset than ever (in the pre-credit sequence itself we see him enraged but helpless) and what else, it’s personal!

The Plot: (Warning!!! - The following paragraphs include spoilers.)
Ok. So it starts with our hero tied to a chair, and a white haired guy asking him for something called Rabbit’s Foot. Quite evidently he’s the bad guy who seems to be in a pretty bad mood and then we see a girl, all tied up, sitting in front of Ethan. She’s crying. Ethan is faced with a problem that our superheroes always face - the problem of singular choice. Either he has to give the location of Rabbit’s foot to the bad guy or lose the girl whom he calls “Jules”. But there’s a catch here. Ethan seems to think that he has already given the Rabbit’s foot to the bad guy. As such he’s confused and tries to buy some way out. But the bad guy is pretty mad and hell bent on hurting the girl. In the end the bad guy shoots the girl in the head and the credits sequence starts in the same way as the other two parts of the installment.

What follows is a long flashback, in which we come to know how Ethan ended in a situation like that. Agent Hunt has retired from field service, but still in active duty. So as his team mate Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) says “those who can’t do, teach”, he’s taken up a job to train fresh recruits. In addition to that he has found a nurse Julia (Michelle Monaghan) whom he loves immensely and planning to marry her and get settled. But on the night of his engagement party he gets a call from IMF Missions Director, Agent Musgrave (Billy Crudup), and comes to know that the first girl recruit Agent Farris (Keri Russell) that he ever recommended for an active field service has gone missing in Germany, while on a trail of a dangerous arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour-Hoffman). What follows is a high adrenaline action packed rescue mission that fails and agent Farris dies. Ethan’s boss Brassel (Lawrence Fishburne aka Morpheus) is quite unhappy in the way the mission is planned. Meanwhile Ethan receives a microdot sent by mail to him by agent Farris. Also the hard drives recovered from the unsuccessful mission point out to a transfer of something called Rabbit’s Foot at Vatican between unknown sellers and Davian. So Ethan and his team decide to kidnap Davian, fake his death, and recover the Rabbit’s foot, but not before Ethan and Julia marry.

Using the high tech equipment, as usual, for the deception, Ethan’s team pulls off the mission in Vatican. But Davian seems to be a cold blooded crazy villain. On the plane back he warns Ethan that he’s going to harm his girlfriend and then kill him in front of her. On the way from Airport to the IMF headquarters, Ethan learns from a message on Farris’ microdot that there’s a mole in IMF in the form of his boss Brassel. There’s an attack on the convoy, and Davian escapes. Ethan realizing that his wife’s life is in danger rushes to hospital where she works, just to find that she’s already kidnapped. He then receives a call from Davian who threatens to kill his wife in 48 hrs unless he get’s him the Rabbit’s foot. But at the same time IMF is after him on orders from Brassel. He’s arrested and then taken to the headquarters where he is helped by Agent Musgrave in escaping to Shanghai.

In Shanghai he meets his team and plans the operation to steal the rabbit’s foot from a tall skyscraper in Shanghai. The mission is a success with just 5 seconds remaining for the time limit of 48 hrs to get over. Ethan bids good bye to his team, and is taken to Davian’s safehouse somewhere in the city. That is where the flashback ends. And we see that Ethan is sitting next to his dead wife.Then comes the twist in the tale, where we see that the mole in IMF is not Brassel but Musgrave who helped Ethan run from the headquarters. It seems that he has been collaborating with Davian to get Rabbit’s foot and sell it to some Middle Eastern country, then collect enough intel to persuade the American Forces to invade that country, and install a puppet government - the usual conspiracy theory. Will Ethan find his way out of this situation and uncover the conspiracy? I'll let the movie answer these questions.
(The spoilers end here)

My Rating: 1.5/2

The Screenplay:

Hmm… So we have a pretty good storyboard here. I heard that Tom Cruise did not go ahead with the shooting until he was satisfied with the script, and I think it is a job well done. First of all, if you ever happened to watch the original TV series that aired on STAR World, Mission: Impossible was all about espionage, deception and hi-tech gadgets. Agreed there was some action, but out-and-out it was always a spy thriller to the core. And so was the first installment of the movie series, with a complicated plot and seemingly impossible heist at CIA, Langley. And it remains my personal favourite till date. Though many people would choose to disagree, second movie was all about style and only action, and very less espionage. A typical John Woo film and I didn’t like that movie very much. The third movie on the other hand is a good mixture of espionage and action.

Contrary to the other reviews, the mission does seem impossible.I have always loved the character of Ethan Hunt more than Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan or Ian Fleming’s James Bond or even xXx’s Xander Cage. (Wonder why super spies always have 4 alphabets surnames!!!) And thank God for getting him a new hairstyle than the one he had in M:I-2. That Ethan Hunt had looked too much flashy and too stylish like James Bond. In the latest installment he is back to what he is – being a spy. Good to see him do ‘lip-read”, pick out targets from moving vehicles, imitate voices and pick-locks using wires. These are the necessary attributes of a spy, right? Also they have tried to show a more personal side of him. I liked the way they have explained how the harnesses work, how the masks are created and how the voice simulators work. Many people don’t like this aspect of the series. But then again, whoever has seen the original TV series will agree to the fact that this is USP of the entire franchise. The gadgets and equipment used are cool, especially the super hi-tech remote controlled rapid fire guns, the remote detonators etc.

Also the final fight sequence with the villain is short and sweet, unlike boring and prolonged one in M:I-2. The villain is yet again an arms dealer. But he sure looks menacing and cold, remorseless, vicious, tough and crazy when compared to Max (Or Maxine as Ethan calls her playfully) from M:I-1 or Sean Ambrose from M:I-2. He is the toughest villain that Ethan Hunt has faced so far. The story writers have avoided the redundancy in the scene where Ethan enters a building from the top to recover the Rabbit’s Foot, a chemical formula that might be used to destroy the world. Since the scene being similar to the one in M:I-2, a clever move on the writers’ part, I must say.Though I must say that at the point where Musgrave lets Ethan escape from the IMF headquarters, I realized that he infact is the mole and not Brassel. So the twist in the end was not a big surprise for me.
My Rating: 2/2

The Action:

The film opens with a scene which looks inspired by the pre-credit sequence in Confidence. It is this sequence that makes you think –“Okay, we have got an edge-of-the-seat thriller at work over here." After all how many times have you seen the love interest of the main protagonist die in the first 5 minutes of the movie? The action never seems to go overboard and is quite believable. The first action sequence where Ethan goes to rescue Agent Farris gets your adrenaline pumping. But the most brilliantly shot one is the Bridge Ambush which reminds of True Lies and Clear and Present Danger. That is the point where I actually felt like the movie should never end. Not to forget the superb jump from the top of a skyscraper in Shanghai, of course.
My Rating: 1.75/2

The Trivia:

All three M:I movies involve recovering an artifact from a dangerous arms dealer.

All three movies have promotional posters with Ethan’s face’s side profile. The first two had Ethan facing right. The third one has Ethan facing left.

Like Jack Ryan’s girl friend and then wife, Ethan’s girl friend also is in medical profession.

The woman in red dress (Maggie Q) again provides distraction, very much like the one in Matrix.

Like Ronin, they have never explained in the movie what Rabbit’s Foot is.

The Performances:

Tom Cruise is brilliant as ever. The scenes worth noting are: Where Julia is confused about Ethan’s commitment to the relationship and he cannot tell her why and where he is going, is just too good.The first actual face to face interaction between Devian and Ethan on the plane back to US.The pre-credit sequence where he is totally helpless and enraged.

Lawrence Fishburne has a small role but made the best of it with a Morpheus like dialogue delivery. A few to be mentioned are:

“You can look at me with those incriminating eyes, but it is people like me who bleed on the flag to make sure that the stripes stay red.”

“Are you throwing a title at me Mr. Musgrave? I don’t give a damn if your father plays golf at the white house.”

“Mr. Musgrave, don’t interrupt me when I’m asking a rhetorical question.”

“It seems we have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

Oscar Winner Philip Seymour-Hoffman shows why he won an Oscar. His character of a complex and idiosyncratic real-life villain is a stark contrast from the washed up self indulgent best friend he played in Along Came Polly, or a stupid fabricator from The Jackal, or even the geek from Twister.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers who became famous as a semi-pro women’s football team coach in Bend It Like Beckham, and Maggie Q as a super-sexy spy do justice to their roles as Ethan’s new team-mates. Ving Rhames is more humorous in this installment, with all the advice he gives to Ethan for getting involved with a girl. Michelle Monaghan looks cute and plays a perfect damsel in distress.
My Rating: 1.5/2

The Music Score and Direction:

Some parts of the background score have been taken from the original soundtrack of the first installment that was never used in the movie. These music pieces are a kind of remix version of the original theme by Lalo Schiffrin. The music blends well with the drama unfolding on the screen and never seems to become a distraction. The Alias and Lost director J.J.Abrams has done a superb job in direction.
My Rating: 1.5/2

Total Rating: 8.25/10

So all in all it is a good movie. Though the International Box-Office figures tend to show a different story, it has got nothing to do with the actual movie. It is due to the declining fan base of Tom Cruise because of his so called heroics in electronic media. I have already seen it thrice and given a chance would see it again atleast twice. But then…. I’m a die hard Tom Cruise fan.