Mission: Impossible III: The Wrath: of the Colon

In our discussion of Episode 5 there was some talk about the merits of Mission: Impossible 3, which was released on DVD this week. I thought it would be useful to give that its own thread, where people who have seen it can spoil the movie and discuss it in-depth.

So be warned, spoilers after the jump.

My take on M:I3 is that it's the only good movie in the series, and a very good action film. Experienced TV director J.J. Abrams, who also worked on the screenplay, has a sure hand in his first big-screen outing, making several set pieces complex and understandable. In particular I like the Vatican heist, where the object stolen is a person. It's clever and stylish, and the scene between Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the bathroom is a great bit of funny business that doesn't ruin the tense atmosphere. The sequence where Cruise has to bungee jump onto the skyscraper also gave me chills -- though that may have more to do with my slight acrophobia than the movie itself.

Sam's complaints seem mainly centered around the fact that the movie isn't like the original series. Yeah, I agree, but this is also the third flick in the movie series and by this point it's pretty clear the movies aren't going to ever be like the TV show. As much as I would enjoy getting some movies that were like the TV show, I think we have to evaluate the movie on its own merits and not in comparison to the series. The performances are all very strong, especially Hoffman's, and everything works: the action scenes, the dialogue, even the core emotional story worked OK for me.

What do you guys think?