Help me out here: who plans on seeing MI:3 this weekend?

Aeroplane · 05-04-2006, 02:12 PM

Want to get a general consensus. Here'a review to help you decide (if it helps at all):

EW review: Cruise's 'Mission': Accomplished
Cruise is fine, Hoffman great, film clever

By Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

(Entertainment Weekly) -- The summer movie season always has an official beginning, even if it gets nudged back a little earlier each year (by 2016, we'll probably be watching "The Mighty Thor IV" on President's Day). What it no longer has is any real end.

The blossom-of-gasoline explosions, the crushed metal, the zippy seamless mutability of a world gone CGI, the heroes who, if not Superman, are always super men -- what it all adds up to is Hollywood's endless summer, the ride that never stops.

And yet, once again, it begins.

In "Mission: Impossible III," Tom Cruise, as the no-fear, no-sweat IMF agent Ethan Hunt, scurries across a freeway bridge that's been blasted to smithereens and, using nothing but a machine gun, faces down a rogue fighter jet as it launches missiles right at him.

He swings from one skyscraper to the next, skittering off the face of a glass pyramid and shooting a guard in mid-slide, landing at the roof's edge with a perfectly understated and in-control ''OK!''

He sprints through the streets of Shanghai in a black T-shirt that makes him look like the fittest movie star ever and, more arrestingly, strolls quietly into empty rooms, gathering the film's tension around the wary, coiled urgency of his stare.

But wait. It's impossible to watch "M:I-3" without asking: Do we still, you know, like Tom Cruise?

Last year, the actor's tone-deaf offscreen antics appeared to break up his 20-year love affair with the media, and maybe the public, too. Yet his Great Gossip World Stumble wasn't really a violation of his star quality; it was that very quality taken to extremes.

His big mistake on "Oprah," for example, was using his springy energy and cocksure grin, his ''spontaneous'' jock-in-front-of-the-bedroom-mirror gestures, his whole spirit of jet-propelled certainty to proclaim romantic devotion -- a feeling that by nature is quiet and reflective. Forgetting the lesson of "Jerry Maguire" (''You complete me''), Cruise acted like a guy who completes himself. It's not that he gave a bad performance but that he gave the wrong performance at the wrong time.

"M:I-3," a gratifyingly clever, booby-trapped thriller that has enough fun and imagination and dash to more than justify its existence, seems purposely designed to counteract that gaffe. This time, Agent Hunt is a bit of a softie -- or, at least, a guy driven by devotion to the woman in his life.

The film opens, rather startlingly, with our hero handcuffed to a chair, as the villain, played with casual slovenly menace by Philip Seymour Hoffman, points a gun at Hunt's bound-and-gagged wife (Michelle Monaghan) and promises to blow her brains out unless Hunt coughs up the Rabbit's Foot, the MacGuffin of a secret weapon that everyone is after.

That creepy flash-forward sets the film's stakes -- this time, in other words, it's personal -- and Cruise, shaking off the karma of his "Oprah" victory dance, plays Hunt with a keen and watchful intensity, as a knight of espionage doing what he does for love.

I'm happy to report that he also still likes to put on a rubber face. After an overly long exposition in which Hunt tries to rescue a kidnapped agent (Keri Russell) with a time-released micro-bomb implanted in her head, the real amusement begins, as Hunt and his team infiltrate Vatican City, where they're out to capture Owen Davian (Hoffman), an arms dealer who, for the right price, will sell any toxic weapon to any jihad.

Ving Rhames' Luther is back, trading barbs about marriage with Hunt, and this time the crew *******s surly Jonathan Rhys Meyers and slinky Maggie Q, who has a high-maintenance hauteur. Billy Crudup, as the point man back at headquarters, comes off like Cruise's pasty-faced academic doppelganger.

The director, J.J. Abrams, is the co-creator and executive producer of "Lost" and "Alias," with their ropy narrative games, and for a good stretch he does a craftier job than Brian De Palma or John Woo did in the first two "Mission: Impossibles" of reviving the cornball clockwork pleasures of an ingenious trip-wire deception. As Hunt, on a computerized pulley, enters the Vatican, then poses as a priest, then puts on a latex mask to impersonate Davian, only to be forced at the last moment to fake a restroom coughing fit before his Davian voice is electronically activated, "M:I-3" stoked my fondest memories of the original TV show's daisy-chain-of-technology suspense.

There's nothing old-fashioned, however, about Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance. Most great actors, when handed the role of a blockbuster villain, will ham it up with style, but Hoffman makes Davian a grubby banal monster. When he warns Hunt that he'll find his wife or girlfriend and hurt her, really hurt her, he shakes his head in mock shame, as if making a sorrowful confession at his weekly meeting of Sadists Anonymous.

I wish the second half of "M:I-3" were as playfully tricky as the first half; the movie builds to some standard, if breathlessly timed, rescue heroics. Yet its central duel lingers: Hoffman the sullen misanthrope, itching to kill, and Cruise the agent-protector, saving the one he loves with aerobic earnestness.

EW Grade:B+

Dead · 05-04-2006, 02:14 PM

I wanna see it but I'm not reading a god damn EW review, they have spoiled so many movies for me when I had a subscription, I hate that mag.

Zorgon · 05-04-2006, 02:14 PM

The cast is pretty good, but MI2 was just so bad that there's no way I'm seeing this in theaters.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 02:16 PM

MI2 wasn't bad, they had cool stunts.

Zorgon · 05-04-2006, 02:18 PM

Compared to the first movie, MI2 is really bad.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 02:21 PM

the first one was so long ago I don't remember any of it besides him hanging from the ceiling.

Zorgon · 05-04-2006, 02:24 PM

Oh man I love the first movie. If it came down to it I'd probably say I like it more than Goldeneye. I guess I'm a sucker for espionage.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 02:26 PM

I liked the bike stunts near the end of MI2.

tear stained glass · 05-04-2006, 02:32 PM

i'm totally seeing this tomorrow. it's going to rule.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 02:33 PM

I was noticing last night that all of Tom Cruise's movies cast an unknown female lead. I was guessing it's because they have to spend all that cash on Tom they can't afford a well known female. I saw on TV that he's never been in a movie that bombed, that's pretty impressive. On TV they also said that with his back end deals and things he can make like $45 million on one movie.

Zorgon · 05-04-2006, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dead

I was noticing last night that all of Tom Cruise's movies cast an unknown female lead.

Yeah dude who was that chick in Eyes Wide Shut? I've never seen her in anything else, but she has a nice rack

beef curtains · 05-04-2006, 02:52 PM

i refuse to see it based on the grounds that i hate tom cruise

FearFactory · 05-04-2006, 02:53 PM

I didn't see the first two and I'm damn sure not gonna see the third. fuck tom cruise and fuck scientology.

ammy · 05-04-2006, 03:04 PM

the first one was good because it actually felt much like the series. th3 second was lame. so that's a no on the third.

but this does remind me that i wanted to add the series to my netflix..

ravenguy2000 · 05-04-2006, 03:04 PM

I will be there. Yes. To see stuff blowing up. I will be there.

Aeroplane · 05-04-2006, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dead

I was noticing last night that all of Tom Cruise's movies cast an unknown female lead. I was guessing it's because they have to spend all that cash on Tom they can't afford a well known female. I saw on TV that he's never been in a movie that bombed, that's pretty impressive. On TV they also said that with his back end deals and things he can make like $45 million on one movie.

Granted, his personal net must still be big, but out of that $45million, he has to pay all his employees. He's a corporate machine embodied in an ugly male; he probably also pays for their benefits. I knew someone who was his personal assistant and though he was a freak, he took good care of her.

tear stained glass · 05-04-2006, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ammy

the first one was good because it actually felt much like the series. th3 second was lame. so that's a no on the third.

but this does remind me that i wanted to add the series to my netflix..

maybe it'll be like die hard. the first one was good, the second one was lame, and the third one was better than the first because of a great villain.

pale blue eyes · 05-04-2006, 03:22 PM

I won't be going. I don't think I've ever seen a Tom Cruise movie I could sit all the way through.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeroplane

He's a corporate machine embodied in an ugly male

What alternate universe do you live in?

Dead · 05-04-2006, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pale blue eyes

I won't be going. I don't think I've ever seen a Tom Cruise movie I could sit all the way through.

What alternate universe do you live in?

Aeroplane · 05-04-2006, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dead

What alternate universe do you live in?

which part of what i said are you referring you? the ugly part? c'mon, he really isn't that great looking. in person, it's worse.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 04:06 PM

Wait, are you the kind of guy that finds Bob Hoskins attractive?

Aeroplane · 05-04-2006, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dead

Wait, are you the kind of guy that finds Bob Hoskins attractive?

eeew. no.

aldango · 05-04-2006, 04:58 PM

I've seen it, and it's awesome. REALLY good.

I'm going to see it again tomorrow.

pale blue eyes · 05-04-2006, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dead

What alternate universe do you live in?

I mean just what I said. I find his onscreen presense extremely grating and generally avoid his movies altogether. If I do catch one on telelvision or whatever, I always end up turning to something else.

Dead · 05-04-2006, 05:07 PM

Even Top Gun?

Karl Connor · 05-04-2006, 05:07 PM

i don't really go to the movies anymore because the DVD comes out shortly after the theatrical release nowadays. but with that said MI:3 looks pretty good for an action flick. i'll definitley watch it sometime soon

pale blue eyes · 05-04-2006, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dead

Even Top Gun?

I watched about fifteen minutes of it on TBS and it wasn't that interesting.

Karl Connor · 05-04-2006, 05:16 PM

tom cruise is a good looking guy that can act good. i never really saw what all the hoopala was about. even in the eighties

Dead · 05-04-2006, 05:17 PM

That's cause TBS is shitty and cuts out all the good parts.

05-04-2006, 02:12 PM	#1 (permalink)
Aeroplane Minion of Satan Location: fine. i must finally admit it: LA, CA Posts: 8,533	Help me out here: who plans on seeing MI:3 this weekend? Want to get a general consensus. Here'a review to help you decide (if it helps at all): EW review: Cruise's 'Mission': Accomplished Cruise is fine, Hoffman great, film clever By Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly (Entertainment Weekly) -- The summer movie season always has an official beginning, even if it gets nudged back a little earlier each year (by 2016, we'll probably be watching "The Mighty Thor IV" on President's Day). What it no longer has is any real end. The blossom-of-gasoline explosions, the crushed metal, the zippy seamless mutability of a world gone CGI, the heroes who, if not Superman, are always super men -- what it all adds up to is Hollywood's endless summer, the ride that never stops. And yet, once again, it begins. In "Mission: Impossible III," Tom Cruise, as the no-fear, no-sweat IMF agent Ethan Hunt, scurries across a freeway bridge that's been blasted to smithereens and, using nothing but a machine gun, faces down a rogue fighter jet as it launches missiles right at him. He swings from one skyscraper to the next, skittering off the face of a glass pyramid and shooting a guard in mid-slide, landing at the roof's edge with a perfectly understated and in-control ''OK!'' He sprints through the streets of Shanghai in a black T-shirt that makes him look like the fittest movie star ever and, more arrestingly, strolls quietly into empty rooms, gathering the film's tension around the wary, coiled urgency of his stare. But wait. It's impossible to watch "M:I-3" without asking: Do we still, you know, like Tom Cruise? Last year, the actor's tone-deaf offscreen antics appeared to break up his 20-year love affair with the media, and maybe the public, too. Yet his Great Gossip World Stumble wasn't really a violation of his star quality; it was that very quality taken to extremes. His big mistake on "Oprah," for example, was using his springy energy and cocksure grin, his ''spontaneous'' jock-in-front-of-the-bedroom-mirror gestures, his whole spirit of jet-propelled certainty to proclaim romantic devotion -- a feeling that by nature is quiet and reflective. Forgetting the lesson of "Jerry Maguire" (''You complete me''), Cruise acted like a guy who completes himself. It's not that he gave a bad performance but that he gave the wrong performance at the wrong time. "M:I-3," a gratifyingly clever, booby-trapped thriller that has enough fun and imagination and dash to more than justify its existence, seems purposely designed to counteract that gaffe. This time, Agent Hunt is a bit of a softie -- or, at least, a guy driven by devotion to the woman in his life. The film opens, rather startlingly, with our hero handcuffed to a chair, as the villain, played with casual slovenly menace by Philip Seymour Hoffman, points a gun at Hunt's bound-and-gagged wife (Michelle Monaghan) and promises to blow her brains out unless Hunt coughs up the Rabbit's Foot, the MacGuffin of a secret weapon that everyone is after. That creepy flash-forward sets the film's stakes -- this time, in other words, it's personal -- and Cruise, shaking off the karma of his "Oprah" victory dance, plays Hunt with a keen and watchful intensity, as a knight of espionage doing what he does for love. I'm happy to report that he also still likes to put on a rubber face. After an overly long exposition in which Hunt tries to rescue a kidnapped agent (Keri Russell) with a time-released micro-bomb implanted in her head, the real amusement begins, as Hunt and his team infiltrate Vatican City, where they're out to capture Owen Davian (Hoffman), an arms dealer who, for the right price, will sell any toxic weapon to any jihad. Ving Rhames' Luther is back, trading barbs about marriage with Hunt, and this time the crew *******s surly Jonathan Rhys Meyers and slinky Maggie Q, who has a high-maintenance hauteur. Billy Crudup, as the point man back at headquarters, comes off like Cruise's pasty-faced academic doppelganger. The director, J.J. Abrams, is the co-creator and executive producer of "Lost" and "Alias," with their ropy narrative games, and for a good stretch he does a craftier job than Brian De Palma or John Woo did in the first two "Mission: Impossibles" of reviving the cornball clockwork pleasures of an ingenious trip-wire deception. As Hunt, on a computerized pulley, enters the Vatican, then poses as a priest, then puts on a latex mask to impersonate Davian, only to be forced at the last moment to fake a restroom coughing fit before his Davian voice is electronically activated, "M:I-3" stoked my fondest memories of the original TV show's daisy-chain-of-technology suspense. There's nothing old-fashioned, however, about Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance. Most great actors, when handed the role of a blockbuster villain, will ham it up with style, but Hoffman makes Davian a grubby banal monster. When he warns Hunt that he'll find his wife or girlfriend and hurt her, really hurt her, he shakes his head in mock shame, as if making a sorrowful confession at his weekly meeting of Sadists Anonymous. I wish the second half of "M:I-3" were as playfully tricky as the first half; the movie builds to some standard, if breathlessly timed, rescue heroics. Yet its central duel lingers: Hoffman the sullen misanthrope, itching to kill, and Cruise the agent-protector, saving the one he loves with aerobic earnestness. EW Grade:B+

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05-04-2006, 02:14 PM	#2 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	I wanna see it but I'm not reading a god damn EW review, they have spoiled so many movies for me when I had a subscription, I hate that mag.

05-04-2006, 02:14 PM	#3 (permalink)
Zorgon Apocalyptic Poster Location: fucking the future Posts: 2,547	The cast is pretty good, but MI2 was just so bad that there's no way I'm seeing this in theaters.

05-04-2006, 02:16 PM	#4 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	MI2 wasn't bad, they had cool stunts.

05-04-2006, 02:18 PM	#5 (permalink)
Zorgon Apocalyptic Poster Location: fucking the future Posts: 2,547	Compared to the first movie, MI2 is really bad.

05-04-2006, 02:21 PM	#6 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	the first one was so long ago I don't remember any of it besides him hanging from the ceiling.

05-04-2006, 02:24 PM	#7 (permalink)
Zorgon Apocalyptic Poster Location: fucking the future Posts: 2,547	Oh man I love the first movie. If it came down to it I'd probably say I like it more than Goldeneye. I guess I'm a sucker for espionage.

05-04-2006, 02:26 PM	#8 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	I liked the bike stunts near the end of MI2.

05-04-2006, 02:32 PM	#9 (permalink)
tear stained glass low-life Location: california...knows how to party Posts: 7,623	i'm totally seeing this tomorrow. it's going to rule.

05-04-2006, 02:33 PM	#10 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	I was noticing last night that all of Tom Cruise's movies cast an unknown female lead. I was guessing it's because they have to spend all that cash on Tom they can't afford a well known female. I saw on TV that he's never been in a movie that bombed, that's pretty impressive. On TV they also said that with his back end deals and things he can make like $45 million on one movie.

05-04-2006, 02:52 PM	#12 (permalink)
beef curtains Immortal Location: I like me so much better when you're naked Posts: 21,731	i refuse to see it based on the grounds that i hate tom cruise

05-04-2006, 02:53 PM	#13 (permalink)
FearFactory Bamboozled By Love Location: the stars Posts: 10,502	I didn't see the first two and I'm damn sure not gonna see the third. fuck tom cruise and fuck scientology.

05-04-2006, 03:04 PM	#14 (permalink)
ammy yer mom Posts: 23,167	the first one was good because it actually felt much like the series. th3 second was lame. so that's a no on the third. but this does remind me that i wanted to add the series to my netflix..

05-04-2006, 03:04 PM	#15 (permalink)
ravenguy2000 NO FATS Location: NO FEMS Posts: 28,988	I will be there. Yes. To see stuff blowing up. I will be there.

05-04-2006, 03:22 PM	#18 (permalink)
pale blue eyes sproutsy Location: :/ Posts: 14,427	I won't be going. I don't think I've ever seen a Tom Cruise movie I could sit all the way through.

05-04-2006, 04:06 PM	#22 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	Wait, are you the kind of guy that finds Bob Hoskins attractive?

05-04-2006, 04:58 PM	#24 (permalink)
aldango ate your baby Location: Austin, TX Posts: 2,963	I've seen it, and it's awesome. REALLY good. I'm going to see it again tomorrow.

05-04-2006, 05:07 PM	#26 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	Even Top Gun?

05-04-2006, 05:07 PM	#27 (permalink)
Karl Connor want some candy? Posts: 18,875	i don't really go to the movies anymore because the DVD comes out shortly after the theatrical release nowadays. but with that said MI:3 looks pretty good for an action flick. i'll definitley watch it sometime soon

05-04-2006, 05:16 PM	#29 (permalink)
Karl Connor want some candy? Posts: 18,875	tom cruise is a good looking guy that can act good. i never really saw what all the hoopala was about. even in the eighties

05-04-2006, 05:17 PM	#30 (permalink)
Dead Deaddy is your daddy! Location: Veronica Mars played with my Wii. Posts: 39,197	That's cause TBS is shitty and cuts out all the good parts.