There Are No Bad ‘Mission: Impossible’ Movies, But…
Culture…sorry, M:i:III truthers—if we’re ranking these honestly, the third one still comes last, Phil Hoffman or no Phil Hoffman.By Frazier TharpeNovember 19, 2024Chris Panicker; Everett CollectionSave this storySaveSave this storySaveI know, I know. That opening. The plane scene. Booger bombs. Keri Russell. And of course, a truly all-time, 50-point-game bad guy performance by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. I understand, recognize, and bow down to all of those things. And yet, still, Mission: Impossible III is the weakest in the series, easily.Before any of its defenders threaten to dangle me out of a plane for this take, let’s first just acknowledge what that really says about the overall quality of the Mission series. I published this almost 10 years ago, around Rogue Nation, arguably before it became a widespread stance but just to reiterate: Mission: Impossible is the greatest action franchise of all time. Film-for-film, the consistency, lasting impact and relevance, stunts, action sequences… no other series is seeing it. That a very good movie like M:i:III ranks dead last is a testament to how great the other six films are. (The purpose of this piece is not to spend time praising John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2, but anyone who can’t recognize that film’s singular greatness simply lacks taste.)The great debate over which Mission is the weakest has been raging for some time now, at least since 2018’s Fallout, with most people deciding it’s either 2 or III, and fans of both coming out with impassioned arguments for why one is better than the other. But last week we got the first trailer for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning—the eighth and ostensibly last Ethan Hunt adventure, due next spring—which heavily implies the MacGuffin from M:i:III, a bioweapon nicknamed the Rabbit's Foot, will factor into the endgame in the new film. This has energized fans of the third film to get on their soapbox and wave their Michelle Monaghan-face cutouts in the air again. And I’m here to say, no, it’s still the weakest. Sorry.You won’t find any J.J. Abrams hate here, though. In the years since he directed M:i:III he’s become one of the most divisive auteurs out, but I’m old enough to remember when it was exciting that the guy who gave us Alias was making a big-budget spy thriller as his directorial debut. And yet, therein lies the problem. Especially compared to each film that came after it—but also the two that preceded it—M:i:III very rarely rises above feeling like a really good episode of TV.The film actually has a lot of J.J. hallmarks that he field-tested on Alias and Lost first: a killer in media res opening, juxtaposing high-level-espionage with basic domesticity, a getaway where someone needs an adrenaline shot to escape, an emotional CPR scene that devolves into just wailing on someone’s chest, Michael Giacchino, etc. But everything around it just falls a little shy of flat. J.J. is also, famously, fascinated by process, and wringing drama out of getting from A to B, which doesn’t translate well here at all—upon actually seeing it played out, I don’t think I ever needed to see just how Ethan and the gang make face masks. And one of the film’s biggest action setpieces just involves Ethan running back and forth across a bridge to get a bigger gun, and jumping over a big hole. It’s easily the lamest, most anticlimactic action sequence across all seven movies.Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman somehow manages to make delivering cold-blooded lines as if he’s just deciding on a lunch order into one of the most inspired choices a film in this genre has ever seen. He also is in, like, four or five scenes. The rest of the supporting cast around Tom Cruise—minus the always-clutch Ving Rhames, of course, and the equally clutch introduction of Simon Pegg’s Benji—is much less engaging, including Jonathan Rhys Meh-yers and the great Laurence Fishburne wasting away in a cliche dickhead-boss role. (God bless Maggie Q for giving more than the script really asks of her.)And with all due respect to Michelle Monaghan, once the shock of a domesticated Ethan wears off, the relationship between him and his fiancee Julia isn’t very compelling. She’s just there to be a damsel, underlined by the script’s very subtle move to have Hoffman’s Owen Davian immediately ask if Ethan has a significant other when he’s running through his list of threats. It was a relief to see the marriage immediately walked back in the next installment, and a pleasant surprise when her encore in Fallout actually turned out to be perfectly economical and solid. And while there’s genius, sometimes, in a plot that doesn’t overextend itself, the story in M:i:III is hilariously thin. J.J.’s right: it really doesn’t matter what the Rabbit’s Foot is, but go back and watch the big scene that tasks Pegg with giving it some weight beyond being a blatant MacGuffin and try not to chuckle.But it looks like the Rabbit’s Foot will get an encore in Final Reckoning, as o
I know, I know. That opening. The plane scene. Booger bombs. Keri Russell. And of course, a truly all-time, 50-point-game bad guy performance by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. I understand, recognize, and bow down to all of those things. And yet, still, Mission: Impossible III is the weakest in the series, easily.
Before any of its defenders threaten to dangle me out of a plane for this take, let’s first just acknowledge what that really says about the overall quality of the Mission series. I published this almost 10 years ago, around Rogue Nation, arguably before it became a widespread stance but just to reiterate: Mission: Impossible is the greatest action franchise of all time. Film-for-film, the consistency, lasting impact and relevance, stunts, action sequences… no other series is seeing it. That a very good movie like M:i:III ranks dead last is a testament to how great the other six films are. (The purpose of this piece is not to spend time praising John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2, but anyone who can’t recognize that film’s singular greatness simply lacks taste.)
The great debate over which Mission is the weakest has been raging for some time now, at least since 2018’s Fallout, with most people deciding it’s either 2 or III, and fans of both coming out with impassioned arguments for why one is better than the other. But last week we got the first trailer for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning—the eighth and ostensibly last Ethan Hunt adventure, due next spring—which heavily implies the MacGuffin from M:i:III, a bioweapon nicknamed the Rabbit's Foot, will factor into the endgame in the new film. This has energized fans of the third film to get on their soapbox and wave their Michelle Monaghan-face cutouts in the air again. And I’m here to say, no, it’s still the weakest. Sorry.
You won’t find any J.J. Abrams hate here, though. In the years since he directed M:i:III he’s become one of the most divisive auteurs out, but I’m old enough to remember when it was exciting that the guy who gave us Alias was making a big-budget spy thriller as his directorial debut. And yet, therein lies the problem. Especially compared to each film that came after it—but also the two that preceded it—M:i:III very rarely rises above feeling like a really good episode of TV.
The film actually has a lot of J.J. hallmarks that he field-tested on Alias and Lost first: a killer in media res opening, juxtaposing high-level-espionage with basic domesticity, a getaway where someone needs an adrenaline shot to escape, an emotional CPR scene that devolves into just wailing on someone’s chest, Michael Giacchino, etc. But everything around it just falls a little shy of flat. J.J. is also, famously, fascinated by process, and wringing drama out of getting from A to B, which doesn’t translate well here at all—upon actually seeing it played out, I don’t think I ever needed to see just how Ethan and the gang make face masks. And one of the film’s biggest action setpieces just involves Ethan running back and forth across a bridge to get a bigger gun, and jumping over a big hole. It’s easily the lamest, most anticlimactic action sequence across all seven movies.
Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman somehow manages to make delivering cold-blooded lines as if he’s just deciding on a lunch order into one of the most inspired choices a film in this genre has ever seen. He also is in, like, four or five scenes. The rest of the supporting cast around Tom Cruise—minus the always-clutch Ving Rhames, of course, and the equally clutch introduction of Simon Pegg’s Benji—is much less engaging, including Jonathan Rhys Meh-yers and the great Laurence Fishburne wasting away in a cliche dickhead-boss role. (God bless Maggie Q for giving more than the script really asks of her.)
And with all due respect to Michelle Monaghan, once the shock of a domesticated Ethan wears off, the relationship between him and his fiancee Julia isn’t very compelling. She’s just there to be a damsel, underlined by the script’s very subtle move to have Hoffman’s Owen Davian immediately ask if Ethan has a significant other when he’s running through his list of threats. It was a relief to see the marriage immediately walked back in the next installment, and a pleasant surprise when her encore in Fallout actually turned out to be perfectly economical and solid. And while there’s genius, sometimes, in a plot that doesn’t overextend itself, the story in M:i:III is hilariously thin. J.J.’s right: it really doesn’t matter what the Rabbit’s Foot is, but go back and watch the big scene that tasks Pegg with giving it some weight beyond being a blatant MacGuffin and try not to chuckle.
But it looks like the Rabbit’s Foot will get an encore in Final Reckoning, as one of several callbacks in the new trailer (welcome back, Rolf Saxon as William Donloe, the poor guy who Ethan and co. got banished to Alaska all the way back in the De Palma original.) It’s sick that Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie found a way to weave a thread in what might be Cruise’s last go-round that stretches back through the entire series. But, personally, I’d be more excited for a Thandie Newton cameo instead.
