Mission: Impossible 3

Ethan Hunt is in some respects the least interested man in action movie history. In the first “Mission: Impossible,” he risked his life to (quoting from Ebert’s original review) “prevent the theft of a computer file containing the code names and real identities of all of America's double agents.” But Ethan must stop this theft after it happens, because first he must “photograph the enemy in the act of stealing the information, and then follow him until he passes it along.” The plot also involves essential uses for latex masks and helicopters, one that flies through the Chunnel from England to France, which is hard, since helicopter blades are wider than the Chunnel.

In “Mission: Impossible 2,” Ethan has to stop a villain who owns a deadly virus: Twenty-four hours after you have been exposed to it, you die. However, Nyah survives by the end of the movie, leaving her available for a sequel, but in “Mission: Impossible 3,” released in 2006, Ethan is engaged to a nurse named Julia, played by Michelle Monaghan, who thinks Ethan is a highway traffic control engineer. (This is going to be a tough one to review. Keep reading to find out why)

Helicopters are involved again, and Ethan becomes a victim of the latex mask trick again, and even uses a latex mask himself, so that everyone else can be tricked and he doesn’t feel so bad. In a nice visual pun, the helicopters come across giant energy-generated windmills in deserts near Berlin that strangely look like deserts near Palm Spring. It’s kind of cool when one propeller slices off another, wouldn’t you agree? Ebert said in his review, “Observing the curious landscape outside Berlin, I was reminded that Citizen Kane built his Xanadu "on the desert coasts of Florida."”

Ethan Hunt’s mission in “Mission: Impossible 3” is to fight the villain Owen Davian, played by the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman (do I have to say why I said this was going to be difficult?) for control of the Rabbit’s Foot. In Ethan’s last line of the movie, after a handful of people have been blown up, shot, crushed and otherwise bothered, he asks his boss Brassel, played by Laurence Fishburne, “What is a Rabbit’s Foot?” Ethan should have known by now that it’s a MacGuffin, just like the virus and the computer file.

Why does Ethan risk his life and lives of the people he love to chase objectives he doesn’t understand? Obviously the answer is that the real objective of all the “Mission: Impossible” movies is to provide a clothesline for some amazing action scenes. Nothing else matters, and illustrative dialogue would only slow the movie down. The formula worked acceptably in “Mission: Impossible,” directed by Brian de Palma, and “Mission: Impossible 2,” directed by John Woo, and I guess it does work up to a certain point in “Mission: Impossible 3,” directed by J.J. Abrams, if what you want is endless, nonstop high-tech action. Even the deadlines are paced up this time. Instead of a 24-hour deadly virus, we have an explosive case that sets off five minutes after it shoots up your nose.

The action takes us to Berlin, Vatican City, Shanghai and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, although there seems to be no real reason to see any of these places except to make stunts involving their landmarks using computer-generated imagery. Here’s what Ebert said: “I did smile at a scene where Ethan parachutes from a building and ends up hanging upside down in his harness in front of a speeding truck. I liked a moment when he jabs a needle of adrenaline into a woman's heart to bring her out of her drugged stupor; Quentin Tarantino should send him a bill. And there is the intriguing speech by an agency techie about the Anti-God Compound, a deadly byproduct of technological overachievement, which might simply destroy everything. If there is an "M:I IV," I recommend the Anti-God Compound as the MacGuffin.”

Ebert also said (which I do see where he is going with), “I didn't expect a coherent story from "Mission: Impossible III," and so I was sort of surprised that the plot hangs together more than in the other two films. I was puzzled, however, by the nature of Ethan's relationship with Julia, his sweet fiancee.” If he belongs to a secret organization that controls his life and can order him around, shouldn’t Julia know that? Or, if not, is it right for them to get married? And when she meets his co-workers from the office, do they all talk like he does, about the fact that if you hit the brakes, it can cause a chain reaction slowing down traffic for hundreds of miles?

These questions are beside the point. Either you want to see mindless action and computer-generated sequences performed with rapid speed and technical accuracy, or you do not. Ebert said that he was getting to a point where he didn’t care. There is a theory that action is exciting and dialogue is boring. Ebert’s theory is “variety is exciting and sameness is boring.” Modern high-tech action sequences are just the same thing over and over again: high-speed chases, desperate gun battles, all possible modes of transportation, falls from high places, deadly deadlines, exotic locations and characters who hardly ever say anything interesting.

I gave positive reviews to “Mission: Impossible” 1 and 2 because they delivered exactly what they promised. But now that I’ve been there, done that, and I’ll just say to look out next week for the finale to “Mission: Impossible Month.”