Review – Mission: Impossible 3

The thing I admired most about this production was the film-makers’ complete refusal to explain the McGuffin. What exactly is the “rabbit’s foot”? And don’t give me any of this “doomsday device” nonsense, either. Why is it valuable for the purpose it’s supposed to serve in the story? Why is it being stored in an office building in Shanghai? Why is it being guarded by private security? Ask away, audience. The only response you’ll get is, “honestly, do you really care?” To which we have to reply that no, we really don’t. It’s not like anyone who ever watched an Evel Knievel motorcycle stunt found him- or herself wondering “did the school buses do something to make him mad?” or “wouldn’t it have been easier to ride around the buses rather than jumping over them?” Just give us Hollywood celebrities, exotic locations (all helpfully identified by nation for the geographically-differently-abled who don’t know that Berlin is in Germany or that Shanghai is in China) and lots of expensive special effects. Plot, character, dialogue – all of which might have been obtained for a fraction of the cost of one stuntman-flinging chunk of pyrotechnics – apparently aren’t worth even a minimal investment anymore. I also have a serious gripe about the demise of the villain, but I can’t include it in this review without giving away the end of the movie. Finally, at the screening I went to, a preview for the new Superman movie accidentally ran through the projector upside down and backward. At the end of the show I was left curious about how the entertainment value of the movie I’d just seen might have been affected if the main attraction had suffered the same fate as the preview. Unfortunately, “not much” is my best guess. See if desperate