By Ann Hornaday
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 5, 2006; C01
Is it too soon?
That's the question Americans are asking about "Mission: Impossible III," starring Tom Cruise. Is it too soon after the bizarre Oprah moment, the verbal throwdown with Brooke Shields, the manically stage-managed courtship with Katie Holmes, the Scientologist humor ( placenta jokes?) and countless other bat-poop crazy antics, for filmgoers to accept Cruise as an action hero and all-around nice guy again?
Or has his career officially jumped the couch?
Based on a purely unscientific study of one preview audience at a recent screening at a suburban Baltimore mall, here's my theory: Tom, the guys still love you. As for women, maybe a few million fruit baskets would help (and don't put it past him). "M:I:III," in which Cruise resurfaces as Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt, reunites Thomas Cruise Mapother IV with his most lucrative persona, that of the young, virile man of action whose determined scowl is surpassed in attractiveness only by his boyish grin. The director, television wunderkind J.J. Abrams, may need to work on his wide shots (heck, a medium shot would be nice), but he puts Cruise through all the right motions, fighting the bad guys, deploying all manner of high-tech weaponry and zipping away on a Very Loud Motorized Vehicle (he beats, shoots and leaves). All while finding time to bed a hot babe along the way.
In this case, the babe is Ethan's fiancee, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), who has domesticated the double-super-secret agent to the point that he is now out of action and training double-super-secret agents to be. Until, that is, Ethan gets The Call -- at his engagement party, as it happens -- and that "Mission: Impossible" theme kicks in, and he's off!
First he takes Berlin, blowing up a big factory; then it's off to Rome, where he masterminds a tricky identity-switch and explosion; then to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, where some cars explode; then Shanghai, where he swings like Spidey from skyscraper to skyscraper and -- well, fill in the blank. Absolutely none of it makes any sense and please don't ask pesky questions like, "Hey, where did he get that car?" Just get with the program, buddy, and come on, let's go, run!
Seen in that breathless spirit, the film is pretty good, and certainly better than the previous movies, which frankly should have been called "Mission: Pretty Darn Probable." (The first was directed by Brian De Palma and the second by John Woo, suggesting an interesting inverse relation to pedigree and success in this particular instance.)
There are those of us who still can't accept the movie franchise co-opting the title of one of the most brilliant TV shows ever produced; where Bruce Geller's sleek, sophisticated ensemble series depended on impeccable logic and twisty ingenuity for its thrills, the movies -- produced by Cruise -- have ejected the group sensibility to focus on Cruise and only Cruise, their action predicated less on crafty psy-ops than Our Man Tom being suspended by a guy wire and then dropped to within inches of his life.
That iconic scene is in "III," but so are some really good ones, like a sequence in Vatican City that harks back to the 1966 series and Sunday nights at prime time, when everything clicked along in 5/8 time and worked out perfectly, to the very second. Cruise has assembled good actors to play Ethan's support team, including Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup and Laurence Fishburne (who plays Ethan's boss with the same intimidating gravitas he projects in "Akeelah and the Bee"). But the stroke of genius in "III" is Philip Seymour Hoffman, fresh off his Oscar win for playing Truman Capote, as the movie's villain, an international trader in bad, bad things.
Hoffman, though underutilized here, not only makes the most of every scene he's in, but he makes Cruise better in those scenes. Watching them spar and dance will put many viewers in mind of their work together in "Magnolia," in which Cruise reminded us that when he feels like it he can, like, act.
But he can also run, jump and go bang-bang. That's what "III" is all about, and that's what first-time film director Abrams, famous for creating "Felicity," "Alias" and "Lost," understands. With Hollywood's biggest star and enormous resources at his disposal, Abrams orchestrates spectacular stunts and, yes, explosions with the efficiency and intelligence of Michael Bay's precocious younger brother. He's also found some nifty locations, especially exploiting the time-warp beauty of Shanghai to its fullest effect.
Of course, there's all sorts of nonsense, including too many "roger thats," and a land-speed-record commute between Annapolis and Virginia that will leave local audiences howling. But as a kickoff to the cinematic Silly Season, "III" for the most part threads the needle between mindless and insulting. One thing Abrams needs to learn, though, is how to pull the camera back out of his habitual TV-ready close-up; aside from a few establishing shots, the whole movie seems to have been filmed in a broom closet (and edited in a Cuisinart).
This is the occupational hazard of directors who have come from the world of series television and advertising, and it makes going to the movies seem like watching MTV on a 50-foot screen. Although, come to think of it, Abrams is probably on to something: "Mission: Impossible III" will no doubt look great on an iPod.
Mission: Impossible III (126 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images and brief sexuality.