Mission Impossible Three.

Starting off more or less at the end is becoming a common and popular feature of action films. Once is a novelty, 5 times is okay but when it becomes the way to start off a film it's not cool anymore. It was cool in Fight Club and it kinda was cool in this but it made watching the end of the film harder because there was a certain 'yeah seen this before' attitude and feel to it.

Common feature of all Mission Impossible films? The face masks. You had to see it coming and when it did come it was a disappointment, just a little. I guess that without it you might forget that it was a Mission Impossible film. So we have the somewhat ridiculous stunts and the obvious plot that Ethan Hunt is being set up (familiar?, yet they managed to make five films from the same kind of plot! Changing the villain doesn't make it any better. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who is generally fantastic, is a good villain but one that angered me a little. I liked that he counted down and then actually did what he said he was going to do, no allowing Cruise to bullshit his way out of something and he wasn't prepared to show his malice by shooting the woman but even so- attacking people when they are injured because you know that they would beat you if they weren't injured is just pathetic and undeserving to the villainous character. Villains are often made out to be cowards but actually they can be just pure evil instead. If i was a famous actress I would read through a script and reject any film in which the villain was pathetic and had no sense of fair play.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was the standout. I know him for the film 'August Rush' in which he was attractive and very cool. Hearing him speak Italian is fantastic! That much of an Irish accent makes speaking any language clearly very difficult but he really did pull it off. He's a guy that stands out so once he has been noticed he cannot take on a different role and appear again in a diversion or operation. As the addition to the team I was impressed with him. Likewise I was impressed with the introduction of Simon Pegg as the techy analyst that worried about his job. Every film needs one and Simon Pegg was peferct.

Just to throw it out- hands up who instantly made the double agent? It was so obvious. At first you might consider Lawrence Fishburne and everything about his character suggests that there could be that side to him but then you think about Lawrence Fishburne and it just doesn't make any sense. In these films there is always a double agent so by process of elimination within the first twenty minutes of the two hour film you have worked out who the real bad guy is. Not to mention that the way he dies is just pathetic- he just gets shot by the woman and that's the end of him- pathetic.