I hope this review isn’t too much of a mess, I found myself with far too much to say and little time to write it (yeh, I could take my time and get it right, but where’s the fun in that?)

I have to say, much as I loved the first of these movies back in 1996, much as John Woo’s sequel eventually won me over on multiple viewings, my anticipation for this movie was literally non-existent. Even after the spectacularly gripping opening (most of the teaser trailer, “there’s an explosive device in your head …”) I wasn’t surprised to find myself let down when the movie appeared to bizarrely flash back over Tom Cruise’s career to either Vanilla Sky, Jerry Maguire or a combo of the two combined with True Lies or Mr and Mrs Smith. Ethan Hunt is married? It could’ve been a disaster, and like I said, it wouldn’t have surprised me … to say the movie doesn’t have its share of clichés and homages would be a big fat lie – here’s a Spiderman moment early on (oh no! Ethan can’t tell the love of his life what he’s up to! But oh, how cute, she trusts him!), a Minority Report moment towards the end (that one might be a spoiler – matter of fact I can’t remember what it was, lol, but it made sense when I was making notes), etc etc. But we can’t complain – Director of the first movie, Brian De Palma, has been ripping off Hitchcock (in the best way possible) for decades. I just say this to show how much I obviously wanted to hate it (I really don’t know why, it’s a mystery, so don’t ask me, lol).

But all in all, once the excrement hits the fan (and that’s early), there’s more than enough here to make your 2 hour investment worthwhile. Smarter than John Woo’s sequel and more fun than De Palma’s initial stab (though for now at least I’ll say again that I certainly prefer that one), and despite all I said in the first paragraph, this is by far the most surprisingly satisfying movie I’ve seen so far this year, the only one so far I can see myself watching again – and the money, by the way, is all on the screen, in splendid setpieces worthy of De Palma’s vision: a helicopter chase through a wind farm; the whole “breaking into the Vatican” sequence, complete with a beautiful, breath-taking Once Upon a Time in the West-style crane shot as Cruise scales the wall that had me literally gasping out loud, “that is so f**king cool”. The completely unintrusive commentary on the cycle of terror is just icing on the cake.

On the side, Simon Pegg provides some of the best comic relief seen in movies of this kind in years. He’s clearly been hired for what he does best, and clearly been given free rein to do just that. It doesn’t get more entertainingly bizarre than Tom Cruise’s phonecall to Pegg towards the end of the movie, Pegg “shhh!”ing into the receiver, “It’s in Shanghai. There. Wonderful. I’ve aided and abetted an enemy of the state. I’ll lose my citizenship for this.” I never thought I’d see him funnier than the, “ooh, he’s got an arm off!” moment in Shaun of the Dead, and certainly not in a “Mission: Impossible” movie … I’m glad to say I was wrong. His aren’t the only laughs to be found, though … check out Tom Cruise’s, “ah! good!” on successfully testing a rudimentary defribulator with which to temporarily kill himself (long story and it’d be a spoiler to elaborate), and exchanges like this involving Ving Rhames:

“A microdot with no image … unusual …”
“You’re not looking in the right place …”
“Then where am I supposed to look? There isn’t much square-footage on these things!”

I also feel the need to mention Keri Russell, who like Simon Pegg just isn’t in the movie enough. It’s always good to see a girl realistically kicking ass, and, well, it’s always good to see Keri Russell too.

It feels weird to say it, but I see this sticking in my top ten for the year right to the bitter end. I think it actually restored my faith in the blockbuster. Roll on IV.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 11:39 pm in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.