Review of Mission: Impossible III (2006) by Susans. — 23 Jul 2006

A 66?! This movie was reviewed better than Pirates 2? I guess that's why they released it at the beginning of the summer. Seriously, friends, maybe I'm blinded by Tom Cruise being crazy and all, but I purposely saw this in the dollar theater, expecting a cliche ridden, over-the-top, stupidly action-packed shooting-fest, and I definitely got my dollar's worth.

But that's about it. Really, I do think I'm blinded by Cruise's newly insane-status, but I wasn't the only one who laughed in the theater when Billy Crudup's character asked him if he slept with his "little sister" (that Felicity chick, very under-used).

Unfortunately, this movie seems to have been the movie-with-which-good-actors-pay-their-bills. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Lawrence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Jonathon Rhys-Myers...it's sad. Really. And I was half-way looking forward to seeing Hoffman playing the villian, like really being evil and enjoying it.

But, alas, there is mostly him beating up Tom Cruise and very little conspiring with his minions. And the worst part? [***SPOILERS***] What did we all love about the first MI? It was corny and cheesy and no one tried to make it anything else--the plot twist was simple, the lines were drawn, and the hardest thing to follow in the movie was the heliocopter chase.

In this one, however, they wanted to add Substance. So there's a cheesy, completely unnecessary scene between two supporting characters, and followed shortly by a completely nonsensical reveal of the "Real Villain.

" And the cheesiest of all cheesy endings that doesn't deserve to be tacked on to an otherwise decent action trilogy. Why am I complaining so much? Because I can, and because I want to bring the median score of the audience reviews down.

Please. Please come down. This movie is worth a good laugh in the dollar theater, but nothing else.