So what's wrong with the film that Aint it Cool News has crowned with glory and honour?
Firstly - ten better recent films of similar intrigue: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, Spy Game, The Spanish Prisoner, The Assassin (with Aidan Quinn), Munich, Spartan, Syriana, and Mission Impossible (DePalma). Some serious, some fluff, none Bond, and all considerably better than this misfire.

Second, the specifics... though I speak in brief in the case of the negatives...

[u]Spoilers...[/u]
Pluses:
* Vatican sequence - including the excellence performance by Maggie Q's curves...
* The restaging of the bridge scene from True Lies with some of the dynamics of Clear and Present Danger.
* Good Opening scene.
* A great deal of Michael Giacchino's music was very good, though parts of it felt like noise with varying rhythms. Still, for the most part, this was a plus.
* At one point in a foot chase, a long take reveals that Tom Cruise can run 100 metres over broken ground in less than 10 seconds. It looks cool, though it adds to the feel that this is a vanity project.

Minuses:
* No Plot of Consequence, or with Consequences- the only significant throughline I can think of this film as having is perhaps a relationship arc... and a pretty shallow one at that. Think of the plot - there's a rabbit's foot... we never know what it is... ok... there's a villain with strong connections that we need to interrogate... well, he's killed summarily in a joke death... the other main villain - the traitor - is revealed (and telegraphed) and killed without consequence... so the MOLE in IMF is dead... the VILLAIN IMF is after is dead with no net gain to the agency and considerable loss... the MCGUFFIN is a McGuffin, so it never really had a plot role beyond the ad hoc. Spending half an hour on a train platform after watching this film, I couldn't help but wonder, what's it about?
* Character Development - or what passes for it in one hour TV shows it seems. Is this what JJ Abrams is really so acclaimed for? I've seen episodes of FELICITY, and I see no difference in the scripting strategies used here to enrich our understanding of these people's lives... so Maggie Q has a cat - still, she's cute, very cute... uh-huh... for all we know, Jonathan Rhys-Myers is the John Polson character from MI2 (remember, annoying Aussie chopper pilot) with a mask on and voice-scrambler. Ving Rhames's character has become one of the smart talking youngsters from FELICITY - all relationship advice when you actually want something done. Billy Crudup is a traitor... yeah... what else? He's also a bad enough shot that a nurse with no previous firing experience could drop him. As for the others - we don't know any of them. Keri Russell, Laurence Fishburne, Phillip Seymour Hoffman are wasted.
* Remains a VANITY PROJECT. This is no more about the 'team' than the previous two films were... the reviews have pandered to this aspect of the film ridiculously. Except for the Vatican and Factory scenes - and even to some extent there - the team is like a deus ex machina for the hero's problems throughout, until he learns to fly, and then he needs no help.
* Though the opening scene is good, when the film finally reaches that scene, in context it's effectiveness is undercut by the need for a happy ending.
* The scmaltz that accompanies the ending is UNFORGIVABLE. The music is awfully contrived. Surely no-one will buy this? The farewell to Ethan from the IMF team is worthy of John Milius's FAREWELL TO THE KING, but it doesn't feel like the MI3 team even believes it.
* The song of the end credits is one of the WORST I've ever heard written specifically for a film. Imagine the 'Robocop' vocals from Rosenman's end credits to ROBOCOP 2, and then imagine them weaved into a pop song.
* Action scenes - very derivative of the second film in this franchise in style... I'd be glad to find someone who could tell the Biotech gunfight apart from the Factory fight in this film, except at least in the Biotech fight, we knew something about the villains, however shallow they were.
* From my girlfriend - no chemistry between the main character and the love of his life. (Despite the excessive references to her cleavage throughout.)
* Numerous shorter problems.
NO MORE SPOILERS

The whole thing reeks of bad ideas. The essence seems to be - FELICITY meets Mission Impossible... Abrams was the wrong man for the job, and the film never shakes the feeling of Cruise surrounded by younger, hipper people, trying to seem as groovy as them. Were they not all too good a set of actors for this, you wish the team from Munich would take over! Time and time again, this film seems needlessly hip, as though Mission Impossible was about being cool... well no, let's get a good story, good characters, good setpieces...

Joe Carnahan or David Fincher, both attached to direct at some point, would have been infinitely better. Much more down the business.

But Davian and the connection between the opening scene and the plot twist at the end was really, really cool.

Michael Giacchino did a good job, but I missed a real slap in the face outing of the M:I theme in the actual film.

It turns out neither plot nor characters were up to scratch.

Now, there also seems to be a problem of people wanting "challenging plots" or "character development" in action movies. That's all well and good, and it can be done, but it's not really needed if you've got some great action scenes and clever editing; Jurassic Park is a perfect example of this: great set-up and action, but nothing "interesting" about the characters and virtually no story; that's fine, it's still an extremely fun movie with awesome visual effects. M:I-3 is similar in that not much, if anything, is known about what exactly the Rabbit's Foot is or who's going to get it (other than Arabs). It doesn't really matter, it just gives us an excuse to have Capote be convincingly evil and have Cruise run through some spectacular action scenes to get his wife/girl back (that helicopter chase at the beginning is just phenominal); great! Nothing wrong with that, I'm confused why you wanted more or expected any more than that.

Brian DePalma did something cool by flipping the Felps (spelling?) character to be evil and that worked great, with an explove train action sequence finale into the mix. John Woo does nothing spectacular with the underwhelming script he had to work with, but he delivered the goods in spades with the action: his continuity (no one is better than this for action sequences than Woo) and the editing by him and Stuart Baird is something to behold. J. J. Abrams does the same with his action, pushing the envelope with nearly non-stop chase and pursuit and also making the tone of the film very dark and interesting. Too bad you didn't enjoy yourself, Franz, I just find most of your argument kind of crazy and I'm not sure why you wanted to know anything more about Maggie Q. (she's f*ckin' sexy!), and the other characters like Match Point and Pulp Fiction—those two actors were fine where they were, in the background.

To expect serious character development and plots with twist and turns in the Mission: Impossible series would be like expecting George Lucas to deliver a top- notch drama.

Two dissapointments this year.
Indeed. Giacchinno's M:I:III is mostly noise with the MI-theme intertwined and popping up ever so often.

Michael got too much credit. It all sounds so pastiche and while the score on CD moves at a difficult and 'forced' pace; the movie is even worse.

Two stars outta a possible 5

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Originally posted by sean:
Franz, you've got a few problems with your argument: Spy Game is awful and it's hard to see where that piece of junk fits into your argument (it's easily Tony Scott's worst film, alongside Enemy Of The State); The Spanish Prisoner is typical David Mamet at his worst pompous-self; The Assassin is cheap and boring, and where again this is relevant isn't clear; Munich is downright hilarious and filled with childish politics, with a hideous "you decide" ending (and no, I never wished Chopper and Layer Cake and Amélie were on the IMF team in M:I-3; don't be silly!); Syriana is just badly written and comes up short on everything, from score to characters to narrative; and than you've also mixed AintItCool into the mix: WOW! And there's also apparently "dynamics" in one of the worst American films around, Clear And Present Danger (I'm not sure which is worse, that or Patriot Games), of which, the ambush action sequence—I'm assuming that's what you're mentioning—is ridiculous and followed by an equally ridiculous score by James Horner. O.K., so your parallels to other films here is just plain off and seemingly irrelevant to your argument.

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Not problems at all. They tell you a little bit about the scale of this film on my espionage genre - not very high at all. Tonally, I thought all of them handled the intrigue better than this film. I even included for rhetorical purposes two films which I don't think are very good but which is certainly better than this - The Assassin and Spy Game (Tony Scott being one of my least favourite directors) - and a film which is barely about intrigue at all - The Spanish Prisoner, but which did 'playful' with far more finesse than MI3's director. And if Munich had a 'you decide' ending (irrelevant, but how was that?), then MI3 with its resolution of absolutely nothing should have had you weeping.

And I don't consider either of Noyce Clancy adaptations better films, they were pretty bad. But I do think they informed a couple of scenes in this film, which was the point of my mentioning them.

Notice I didn't include THE RECRUIT. That's because I think MI3 is on par with that one. They're both pretty bad.

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Now, there also seems to be a problem of people wanting "challenging plots" or "character development" in action movies. That's all well and good, and it can be done, but it's not really needed if you've got some great action scenes and clever editing; Jurassic Park is a perfect example of this: great set-up and action, but nothing "interesting" about the characters and virtually no story; that's fine, it's still an extremely fun movie with awesome visual effects. M:I-3 is similar in that not much, if anything, is known about what exactly the Rabbit's Foot is or who's going to get it (other than Arabs). It doesn't really matter, it just gives us an excuse to have Capote be convincingly evil and have Cruise run through some spectacular action scenes to get his wife/girl back (that helicopter chase at the beginning is just phenominal); great! Nothing wrong with that, I'm confused why you wanted more or expected any more than that.

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It's not so much the lack of character development as the absence of plot that bugs me. But certainly what drove me nuts throughout was the constant snappy banter that served as the primary vehicle for the development of the characters. Leached any chance of tension out of all the sequences except the one where Ving Rhames wasn't playing Noel from FELICITY - the bridge. That sort of nod-wink-cute-post-modern cheeky stuff ruined it for me.

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Brian DePalma did something cool by flipping the Felps (spelling?) character to be evil and that worked great, with an explove train action sequence finale into the mix. John Woo does nothing spectacular with the underwhelming script he had to work with, but he delivered the goods in spades with the action: his continuity (no one is better than this for action sequences than Woo) and the editing by him and Stuart Baird is something to behold. J. J. Abrams does the same with his action, pushing the envelope with nearly non-stop chase and pursuit and also making the tone of the film very dark and interesting. Too bad you didn't enjoy yourself, Franz, I just find most of your argument kind of crazy and I'm not sure why you wanted to know anything more about Maggie Q (she's f*ckin' sexy!), and the other characters like Match Point and Pulp Fiction—those two actors were fine where they were, in the background.

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I didn't want to know more... but I can think of better things for the movie to do that talk about her cat! My big thing on character development is that you won't find a review of this film that doesn't note the film's strength in this area (and also on the issue of a 'team')... I didn't buy the PR nearly so fully.

Just to refresh... the way what little character development there was was handled was annoying, the general lack of it certainly made it feel like all reviews of this film are misleading to make a big thing of it, and ultimately the focus of the character development takes nothing away from the feeling that this series is a vanity project.

On the previous films... MI2 is 4 out of 10 for me. Bad film, nice polish. I only saw it once, but MI is somewhere between 6 and 7, with most points coming from the film's first hour. DePalma's film has the best espionage atmosphere of the three for me.

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And that Felecity business!?! Honestly, dude, who cares. I've never seen an episode of Felecity or Alias or Lost, and I'm not about to start watching any of those shows, but I am impressed by Abrams's film here, rgardless of whatever TV show he's done in the past.

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Well then it's not going to be problem for you, dude. It was for me.

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M:I-3 is well shot, edited, acted, and the score is dynamite. Franz, I think you just messed things up for yourself by overthinking. Jeff Bond, hit the bull's eye: "It was fast-paced and light on its feet," and that's what M:I needed for this third installment. Given what Abrams has done with this film, I'm excited as hell for his sci-fi take for Star Trek XI!

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
I just returned from a late-night showing here in Atlanta (after a few Cinco de Mayo drinks) and I find this thread waddling its way to the top of the forum. Why? Because Franz is on a rant; and when he's on a rant, it gets boring.

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Well, I've never been on the receiving end, so I'll take your word for it.

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I assumed that you wrote this review during the film (hence taking your eyes off the fantastic direction, dynamite editing, and your ears off the exhilerating score) because your review is entirely too-well versed for this type of movie.

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I remember things... The only time I took my eyes off the screen was to look at my beautiful girlfriend.

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
If you were expecting Syriana-like politics or R-rated tension like Munich, I'm sorry that I couldn't have told you earlier that you were walking into the wrong film.

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Ok, I haven't done any favours by mixing serious movies and fun here, but I'll make it clear what I meant by bringing those two up. Regardless of the hot potato content, there's technique being displayed in those films that MI3 could have used.

There are aspects to those films that handled an espionage film better than this... when Clooney is trying to access information via the CIA computers in SYRIANA, there's a disorientation that is in the score, the script, the visuals... this film wouldn't have hurt from some of that. DePalma's film was rich with that feeling - particularly the night following the slaughter of the team.

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Originally posted by sean:
[B]Spy Game is awful and it's hard to see where that piece of junk fits into your argument (it's easily Tony Scott's worst film, alongside Enemy Of The State); The Spanish Prisoner is typical David Mamet at his worst pompous-self; The Assassin is cheap and boring, and where again this is relevant isn't clear; Munich is downright hilarious and filled with childish politics, with a hideous "you decide" ending (and no, I never wished Chopper and Layer Cake and Amélie were on the IMF team in M:I-3; don't be silly!); Syriana is just badly written and comes up short on everything, from score to characters to narrative; and than you've also mixed AintItCool into the mix: WOW! And there's also apparently "dynamics" in one of the worst American films around, Clear And Present Danger (I'm not sure which is worse, that or Patriot Games), of which, the ambush action sequence—I'm assuming that's what you're mentioning—is ridiculous and followed by an equally ridiculous score by James Horner.

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Aaaaargh! Well, you've stirred me into action now, even at this ungodly hour, and even when I'm sporting a world-class hangover. I disagree with virtually all your assessments of those films, even the Tony Scott ones (praising Tony Scott films is not something I undertake lightly, but I thought both Enemy of the State and Spy Game were entertaining enough pieces of fluff) - but I can't let that Spanish Prisoner comment pass by. "Typical David Mamet at his worst pompous-self" has sent me into convulsions. I can't imagine anything I would rather watch than "typical David Mamet" - characters with real motivations but not ones so obvious you know exactly what's going to happen from the moment you start watching, extraordinarily witty and clever dialogue, and of course a compelling storyteller. To even hear him mentioned in the same breath as JJ "Southall's cat could write better than this" Abrams is one of the largest insults I've ever heard directed towards anybody.

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Now, there also seems to be a problem of people wanting "challenging plots" or "character development" in action movies. That's all well and good, and it can be done, but it's not really needed if you've got some great action scenes and clever editing; Jurassic Park is a perfect example of this: great set-up and action, but nothing "interesting" about the characters and virtually no story; that's fine, it's still an extremely fun movie with awesome visual effects.

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I entirely agree about this, but you've got to have SOMETHING to cling on to, it can't just be explosions and effects. Jurassic Park is made by the greatest popcorn director of his generation, has very fine actors in it, and effects which truly were groundbreaking. You say it's got no real story, and that you don't care about the characters, but if that were the case then it wouldn't really work at all, since so much of it is tension-based set-pieces which can only ever work if you DO care about the characters.

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Brian DePalma did something cool by flipping the Felps (spelling?) character to be evil and that worked great, with an explove train action sequence finale into the mix. John Woo does nothing spectacular with the underwhelming script he had to work with, but he delivered the goods in spades with the action: his continuity (no one is better than this for action sequences than Woo) and the editing by him and Stuart Baird is something to behold. J. J. Abrams does the same with his action, pushing the envelope with nearly non-stop chase and pursuit and also making the tone of the film very dark and interesting.

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I have to say that MI2 is probably the worst film I've ever actually paid to see, with a nonsense script turned into an absolute turd by the absurd John Woo, but I do spot a pattern of fundamental disagreement emerging between us here!

De Palma's M:I, I would posit as the quintessential modern action/adventure movie. Love it.

I went to Mi3 last night expecting to see an enjoyable espionage film and came out feeling ripped off.

I went to Terrence Malick's THE NEW WORLD today expecting to see a meandering, philosophical, non-expositional narrative with heavy voice-overs and shots of grass... and I was rewarded with exactly that. The difference is that Malick's film is for those that like his films, and so it got full marks from me. It's not as good as the last two, but it's utterly magnificent.

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Originally posted by sean:
typical blabber typing of Ryan Keveany

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Nice try. Wrong again. That's "Ryan Keaveney".

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Originally posted by Dinko:
Nice try. Wrong again. That's "Ryan Keaveney".

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Originally posted by sean:
His scripts are better handled by other filmmakers, like with The Untouchables, The Edge, or Hannibal; they seem to take care in editing out his "witty" writing.

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Originally posted by sean:
Franz, I have no clue why you're bringing up The New World...

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I thought it was about time I started talking about those 'other things' I mentioned in the title of the thread...

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Originally posted by sean:
Franz, I have no clue why you're bringing up The New World...

I thought it was about time I started talking about those 'other things' I mentioned in the title of the thread...

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Originally posted by nuts_score:

At least Franz still keeps his sense of humor about the little scuffles that occur on the boards as opposed to the old force of Darkness formerly known as Zimmerito.

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It's funny that you mention Scott in this MI3 thread because Abrams lured Dan Mindel to shoot MI3. Mindel shot ENEMY OF THE STATE and SPY GAME and gave MI3 the same look.

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Originally posted by rkeaveney:

It's funny that you mention Scott in this MI3 thread because Abrams lured Dan Mindel to shoot MI3. Mindel shot ENEMY OF THE STATE and SPY GAME and gave MI3 the same look.

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You know why Ryan? Because he's Dan Mindel! If any other director was allowed to work with Janusz Kaminski (does Spielberg own him and Rick Carter or something?) I'm sure we'd get the same brilliant lighting scheme.

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Originally posted by rkeaveney:
Sean, anyone who has watched the complete works of Tony Scott knows that DOMINO and THE FAN are his worst.

It's funny that you mention Scott in this MI3 thread because Abrams lured Dan Mindel to shoot MI3. Mindel shot ENEMY OF THE STATE and SPY GAME and gave MI3 the same look.

Ryan

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
Agreed absolutely Mr. Conrad. It's good we can see eye to eye after our prior wrestling match.

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The rage is over... I missed my train... it's happened before.

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
Peter Suschitzky is also a good craftsman. No two Cronenberg films that he DPed look the same and Shopgirl had the best lighting IMO from last years films - yet looked unlike anything he'd done before (maybe Cronenberg's Madame Butterfly could compare but the lighting wasn't as dramatically harsh).

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That would be M. BUTTERFLY (NOT Madame).
There's a reason for that as the "madame" is a man.

I thought Suschitzky did a beautiful job on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. That was the best shot of all the STAR WARS films.

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Originally posted by Bond1965:

I thought Suschitzky did a beautiful job on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. That was the best shot of all the STAR WARS films.

James

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I had the pleasure of meeting Peter and he is a fantastic human being, and always gracious about fans and EMPIRE. He even signed my ART OF MARS ATTACKS! book for me

Oh, and did Sean say something?

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Originally posted by Bond1965:

That would be M. BUTTERFLY (NOT Madame).
There's a reason for that as the "madame" is a man.

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D'oh! Thanks James. It's late, I'm bound to make a mistake or two like that.

The MI films are indeed different from the original TV series which was like watching a clockwork Rube Goldberg machine at work every week. A lot of the episodes went into implausibility, but when they got it right, it was very exciting.

I love 70s DePalma but Casualties of War showed that he'd become horribly ham-handed. A lot of people adored MI1 (the Cahiers du Cinema in France had it on their top 10 list of films for that year), but it only worked up to a point with me. I had just seen Heaven Knows Mr. Allison in which Robert Mitchum bites a rat to keep it from squealing and giving his position away. And there Jean Reno was doing the same thing probably because whoever wrote MI1 didn't think anyone would catch such an old & obscure reference (which was probably stolen from something else in the silent era that that scriptwriter had seen & remembered). Despite all its neat effects, MI1 still had a been there-done that aspect to it.

I love John Woo but his non-HK films have all been weak. MI2 had some neat shots but that's about it. Robert Towne just cribbed Notorious & other Hitchcock, put sexist lines in his villian, and the end result was distasteful.

I'm not sure given that track record I should even bother with MI3. We have a good dollar theater in town & I'm patient so I'll probably see it eventually.

Despite its soap opera feel, I actually liked Felicity and it might be worth seeing MI3 just to see Keri Russell in sometyhing again. I've never seen an episode of Alias but the Lost episodes I've seen have all relied on good story which is a plus.

Lastly, a few words on Enemy of the State. You can slam the story all you want. What matters ultimately about this film is that it shows you better than any film had up to that time what it would be like to have modern surveillance technology in the hands of fascists. EOTS has had an incredible impact and influence. Since then, so many other works have followed suit. I've even seen anime from Japan do the same kind of satellite to computer screen tracking of people that is shown in EOTS. So whatever you have to say about the film itself is meaningless next to its political value as a key work with images that defend freedom.

I can't say how many times I've said to people, if the wrong guys get into power, they'll watch & control everything you do, just look at EOTS. But even EOTS was old-hat. One look at old The Prisoner episodes from 1967-68 and you can see the same surveillance society at work on a smaller scale.

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Originally posted by rkeaveney:

Oh, and did Sean say something?

Ryan

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Well, I didn't "say" anything, because this is the Internet and I can only write things. But, it was about you being wrong.