Were you having sex with your little sister?

When I reviewed Mission Impossible II I said I had high hopes for the series, since the second film is the lowest rated both critically and by audiences, and I thought it was pretty good. And if it’s the worst rated, it can only go uphill from there, right? Right.

Directed by some indie film guy who calls himself JJ Abrams, Mission Impossible III stars Tom Cruise as the titular Joe Possible aka Ethan Hunt who does the missions well and kisses all the pretty girls. And the pretty girl in this movie is Michelle Monaghan playing Julia Meade, Ethan’s fiancé.

We tune in to the film way down the line with Ethan in a pickle. He’s been captured along with Julia at the behest of the big baddie who explains that he’s going to kill her if Ethan doesn’t hand over the rabbit’s foot. How did he get in that position? What is the rabbit’s foot? How will Ethan find his way out of this one? Cut back a few days and let’s start from the beginning.

Casting went genius mode on Mission Impossible III as the big bad guy is played by none other than Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Owen Davian is an arms dealer and so far Ethan’s biggest threat. It takes a big guy to be captured and not only take control of the conversation but lay out in detail what he’s going to do to Ethan and his girlfriend/wife, and that he will get hold of her.

The plot of MI:3 is great. We already know things eventually go sideways, so the question is how does it lead up to that. There’s a couple really good infiltration and extraction scenes with Ethan and his crew. Maggie Q is here as Zhen Lei and she never appears in this series again. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Declan Gormley and he’s never coming back.

Ving Rhames is back as Luther and he’s definitely coming back. Billy Cudrup plays the IMF Director of Operations while Keri Russell plays Lindsey Farris, an IMF agent being held captive. Simon Pegg is here as a nerd who will be Ethan’s tech guy for the next few movies. And Laurence Fishburne plays the new IMF director Theodore Brassel. Weirdly Fishburne does not appear again.

As always the tech in Mission Impossible is cool as hell. A lot of the computer interfaces still have that Windows 98 feel to them, but the gadgets are fantastic and Tom Cruise’s stunt work is top notch as always. The ingenuity the team uses to go about their missions is quite impressive.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how great Hoffman is as Davian, a villain who sells his intimidation to Ethan and the audience. The dude doesn’t just believe himself to be untouchable, he basically is, and the IMF as a whole hasn’t been able to stop him. He’s formidable for Ethan, and there’s definitely no moment where Ethan reveals he’s actually been outwitting Davian the whole time. It’s a true fight for survival.

Next up is Mission Impossible 4: The Fourth Mission – Ghost Protocol from 2011.

Rating: A