to be proud of. About 20-30% of the 'fresh' (i.e. positive) reviews
are from sycophantic wanna-be movie critics who would slather praise
on Barry Levinson's Toys, Rob Reiner's North, or Andy Sidaris's
Hard Ticket to Hawaii. In other words, in order to drop below the 60%
threshold and be deemed 'rotten' the film must be spectacularly
bad.
Here Ye, Here Ye!: MI3 is a great action flick.
MI3 is not the best action movie ever... its not Die Hard, its not
Raiders of the Lost Arc, its not The Martix, but its very, very good.
It does all the things that a big-budget Hollywood action
flick should do: keeps the action moving, amazing stunt/action
sequences, intriguing plot twists, strong casting, strong-enough
script, & not leaving you with the feeling that the film has
basically mined action flicks of the past 20-30 years for
80% of its content.
It ain't perfect... it wraps up too quickly, and the quintuple-crossing
that goes back and forth at the agency is nonsensical, confusing,
half-baked.. even unnecessary, but I think that's the way MI
creator Bruce Geller intended for these things to unravel, so whatever.
A few salient points:
1) Tom Cruise turns in an excellent performance.
Clearly the guy has some quirky personal life issues. Or perhaps
a lifetime subscription to National Geographic quantity of
quirky personal issues. But seeing the man in a film is not
tantamount to asking him to babysit your kids. He's an actor.
And for about twenty years, from Risky Business to A Few Good Men
to Magnolia to, well, MI3, he's been turning in solid performances.
And in that time span, he has not (to my knowledge) committed
a major felony or done a self-satisfying POS like Battlefield
Earth.
2) Philip Seymour Hoffman turns in an excellent performance.
Which is great. But I needed this one, on a very self-satisfying
level. I love Philip, but, as I noted earlier on this here blog,
Capote damaged me. Hoffman turned in a high caliber,
award-deserving performance, but it wasn't the type of role
I enjoy watching him in, and shortcomings with the film on the
whole made it difficult to endure. He breaks new ground with MI3.
Add arch-evil bad guy to the resume. In short, give me Owen Davien,
Sandy Lyle, Brandt, & Scotty J., or give me death.
3) The dude who created Lost earns some points with the Davester.
J.J. Abrams created ABC's hit series Lost, and also directed MI3.
Lots of people can't stop talking up the genius of Lost.
Like 24, I just don't get it. Without going on here, let me just
say at the outset, I can't take a show about a group of people
stranded on an island seriously when, in the second season, the
characters look more or less as dapper as the cast of The Young
and The Restless, or The Real World. So... I'm glad on some level
Mr. Abrams and I have bonded. PS-- Anyone who suggests that Lost
is on the same level as The Sopranos, even in its 5th and
puttering-out season, should do hard time. OK, maybe, like
18 months. More than a year.
Enough already. Don't believe the hype. Two thumbs up for MI3.
Time out, time out... lets take another look at this thing.
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