Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible III (marketed as M:i:III, M:I-3, or Mission: Impossible 3) is a 2006 American action-spy film co-written and directed by J.J. Abrams, his first film as a director, starring Tom Cruise, who also served as a producer, in the role of IMF agent Ethan Hunt. The film was first released on April 26, 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival and widely released in the United States on May 5, 2006. The film was a box office success, and it received mostly positive critical reviews. The film is the third installment of the Mission: Impossible film series and was preceded by Mission: Impossible II (2000) and followed by Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015).

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has retired from field work for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) and trains new recruits. Ethan is sent back into action to track down the elusive arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Plot

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has retired from active field work for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) and instead trains new recruits while settling down with his fiancée Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan), a nurse at a local hospital who is unaware of Ethan's true job. Ethan is approached by fellow IMF agent John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) about a mission: To rescue one of Ethan's protégés, Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), who was captured while investigating arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Musgrave has already prepared a team for Ethan – Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Zhen Lei (Maggie Q), and his old partner Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), who are waiting in Berlin.

The team rescues Lindsey and collects two damaged laptop computers during their escape. As they flee on a helicopter, Ethan discovers an explosive pellet was implanted in Lindsey's head. Before he can disable it, it goes off and kills her. Back in the States, Ethan and Musgrave are reprimanded by IMF Director Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne). Ethan learns that Lindsey mailed him a postcard before her capture and discovers a magnetic microdot under the stamp.

IMF technician Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) recovers enough data from the laptops to determine that Davian will be in Vatican City to obtain a mysterious object called the "Rabbit's Foot". Ethan plans the mission to capture Davian without seeking Brassel or Musgrave's approval. Before leaving, he and Julia have an impromptu wedding at the hospital's chapel. The team successfully infiltrates Vatican City and captures Davian.

On the flight back to the United States, Davian threatens to kill Ethan and his loved ones. Ethan then threatens to drop Davian out of the plane, during which Davian overhears Luther calling Ethan by his first name. After landing, Ethan learns that the microdot contains a video of Lindsey warning that she believes Brassel is working with Davian. The convoy taking Davian across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel is suddenly attacked, and Davian escapes. Fearing for Julia's safety, Ethan races to the hospital, only to find that she has already been taken. Davian calls Ethan to give him 48 hours to recover the Rabbit's Foot in exchange for Julia's life, but Ethan is soon captured by IMF.

Musgrave takes part in Ethan's interrogation but discreetly mouths that the Rabbit's Foot is located in Shanghai, China, and provides Ethan with the means to escape IMF. Ethan and his team raid the building where the Rabbit's Foot is secured, and inform Davian that they have the Rabbit's Foot. Ethan goes to deliver the Rabbit's Foot alone, and is forced to take a tranquilizer. After he comes to, a micro-explosive is implanted in his head. The restrained Ethan sees Davian apparently holding Julia at gunpoint (the full scene opens the movie). Despite Ethan asserting that he brought the real Rabbit's Foot, Davian shoots Julia and leaves.

Musgrave arrives and explains that the woman killed by Davian was not Julia, but Davian's head of security (Bahar Soomekh) in a mask, executed for failing to protect Davian in Vatican City. The Julia-mask was used to force Ethan to confirm the authenticity of the Rabbit's Foot – and the real Julia is alive. Musgrave reveals himself as the mole, having arranged for Davian to acquire the Rabbit's Foot to sell to a terrorist group so IMF would have reason to launch a pre-emptive strike. Musgrave asks Ethan about the microdot Lindsey sent, wanting to know if Lindsay had compromised him at IMF. To convince Ethan to co-operate, Musgrave dials his phone for Ethan to hear Julia's voice to confirm she is alive. Ethan bites on Musgrave's hand and knocks him unconscious, freeing himself and using Musgrave's phone (with Benji's help) to track down the location of Musgrave's last call. Ethan finds Davian and pushes him into the path of a truck, but not before Davian triggers the countdown of the micro-explosive. Freeing Julia, he instructs her to electrocute him, deactivate the explosive, and then revive him. He also instructs her in using a gun for her protection. While reviving Ethan, Julia fatally shoots Musgrave. Julia successfully revives Ethan, and he explains his true IMF career to her as they leave.

Back in the U.S., Brassel congratulates Ethan as he leaves for his honeymoon with Julia. Ethan is unsure if he will return to the IMF. Brassel promises that he will tell Ethan what the Rabbit's Foot is if Ethan will promise to return. Ethan smiles and walks off with Julia.

Cast

• Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt
• Philip Seymour Hoffman as Owen Davian, the most infamous black market dealer
• Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, member of Ethan's team
• Billy Crudup as John Musgrave, IMF Operations Director
• Michelle Monaghan as Julia "Jules" Meade, Ethan's fiancée/wife
• Keri Russell as Lindsey Farris, IMF agent trained by Ethan
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Declan Gormley, member of Ethan's team
• Maggie Q as Zhen Lei, member of Ethan's team
• Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, IMF Technician
• Eddie Marsan as Brownway, Davian's henchman
• Laurence Fishburne as Theodore Brassel, head of the IMF
• Bellamy Young as Rachael
• Jeff Chase as Davian's Bodyguard
• Bahar Soomekh as Davian's Translator
• George Cheung as Shanghai Game Player (uncredited)
• Ty Williams as Thug (uncredited)
• Sasha Alexander as Melissa Meade
• Aaron Paul as Rick Meade

Production

Development

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In 2002, director David Fincher was slated to direct the next installment of the Mission: Impossible film series for a summer of 2004 release date. Fincher, however, dropped out in favor of another film, later citing creative differences over the direction of the series. Replacing Fincher was director Joe Carnahan, who worked on developing the film for 15 months. Under his involvement, the film was to feature "Kenneth Branagh playing a guy who's based on Timothy McVeigh," as well as Carrie-Anne Moss and Scarlett Johansson in other roles. Thandie Newton was offered to reprise her role as Nyah Nordoff-Hall from Mission: Impossible II; she declined, however.

After a dispute over the film's tone, Carnahan quit in July 2004. Tom Cruise then called J.J. Abrams, offering the directorial role for the film after having binge-watched the first two seasons of Alias. Abrams ultimately signed on, with production delayed a year due to his contractual obligations with Alias and Lost. During this time, Branagh, Moss, and Johansson departed from the project because of the many delays in production. On June 8, 2005, Paramount Pictures gave the film the green-light after a new cast of actors was hired and the film's budget was redeveloped, with Cruise taking a major pay cut.

Filming

Principal photography began in Rome, Italy on July 18, 2005 and ended in October. Location filming took place in China (Shanghai and Xitang), Germany (Berlin), Italy (Rome and Caserta), the United States (California and Virginia), and Vatican City. The night scenes involving the skyscrapers were filmed in Shanghai, while some of the Shanghai filming was also done in Los Angeles.

Music

Main article: Mission: Impossible III (album)

The film's musical score was composed by Michael Giacchino. He is the third composer to take on the series, following Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer. The score album was released on May 9, 2006 by Varèse Sarabande Records. Unlike the previous installments, no soundtrack album featuring the film's contemporary music was released. Despite this, the film features a song by Kanye West entitled "Impossible" that also features Twista and Keyshia Cole.

Distribution

Marketing

To promote the film, Paramount rigged 4,500 randomly selected Los Angeles Times vending boxes with digital audio players which would play the theme song when the door was opened. The audio players did not always stay concealed, and in many cases came loose and fell on top of the stack of newspapers in plain view, with the result that they were widely mistaken for bombs. Police bomb squads detonated a number of the vending boxes and even temporarily shut down a veterans hospital in response to the apparent "threat". Despite these problems, Paramount and the Los Angeles Times opted to leave the audio players in the boxes until two days after the movie's opening.

"Trapped in the Closet" controversy

Main article: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

A blog entry of Hollywoodinterrupted.com in March 2006 alleged that Viacom (parent of Paramount and Comedy Central) canceled the rebroadcast of the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet" due to threats by Cruise to refuse to participate in the Mission: Impossible III publicity circle. These assertions were soon also reported by E! News and American Morning. Fox News attributed threats from Tom Cruise, stating, "to back out of his Mission: Impossible III promotional duties if Viacom didn't pull a repeat of the episode", as evidence of "bad blood" between Cruise and Viacom. The Washington Post reported that South Park fans "struck back", in March 2006, and threatened to boycott Mission: Impossible III until Comedy Central put "Trapped in the Closet" back on its schedule. Melissa McNamara of CBS News later questioned whether this boycott hurt the Mission: Impossible III box office debut. Even political blogger Andrew Sullivan encouraged a boycott of the movie, based on claims that Cruise allegedly forced Comedy Central to censor a South Park episode about Scientologists. "Make sure you don't go see Paramount's Mission: Impossible III, Cruise's upcoming movie," Sullivan wrote. "I know you weren't going to see it anyway. But now any money you spend on this movie is a blow against freedom of speech. Boycott it. Tell your friends to boycott it."

When asked in ABC's Primetime about his involvement with stopping the episode rebroadcast on Comedy Central, Cruise stated "First of all, could you ever imagine sitting down with anyone? I would never sit down with someone and question them on their beliefs. Here's the thing: I'm really not even going to dignify this. I honestly didn't really even know about it. I'm working, making my movie, I've got my family. I'm busy. I don't spend my days going, 'What are people saying about me?'" A representative of Cruise had also denied any involvement of Cruise with the issue, specifically responding to allegations of Cruise's reputed corporate power play.

Reception

Box office

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Opening in 4,054 theaters all across the United States, the fourth largest opening ever up to that point, the film topped the box-office in its opening weekend. It made $16.6 million on its opening day and $47.7 million in its opening weekend, a solid opening yet almost $10 million lower than the franchise's previous installment. The film remained at number one with $25 million during its second weekend, ahead of PoseidonTemplate:'s gross of $22.2 million. The movie remained in the Top 10 at the box office for the remainder of its first six weeks of release. Mission: Impossible III ended its initial domestic run on July 20, 2006, taking in a total of $134 million. It was the second movie in 2006 to pass the $100,000,000 mark in the box office, following Ice Age: The Meltdown.Template:Citation needed The $134 million domestic run was significantly lower than that of Mission Impossible II, as well as box office analysts' expectations.Template:WhoTemplate:Citation needed

Outside of the USA, the sequel grossed $70 million for the first five days (in some Asian countries, Mission: Impossible III opened two days ahead of its North American release date) and was easily the box-office champion in many countries. As of February 11, 2007, M:I-III's international box office gross has reached $263.8 million, for a combined worldwide gross of $397.9 million, the lowest so far of the series.

In the Netherlands, the film debuted in the week of May 4–10 at Template:Abbr 1, grossing a total of € 532,384 in that week. The following week, the film remained on the top position. In its third week, the film dropped to Template:Abbr 2 and the following week, fell to Template:Abbr 4. Next it maintained the Template:Abbr 4 position to drop to Template:Abbr 6 (in the week of June 6 - June 14). In total, the film has grossed over € 2,141,162.

Critical response

Template:Anchor Mission: Impossible III received positive reviews from critics. The film holds a 70% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average of 6.6, based on 218 reviews, the second best rating of the four films. It holds a similar rating on Metacritic, with an average score of 66/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on a normalized average of 38 reviews.

On the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper gave Mission: Impossible III a "thumbs up", while Roger Ebert gave it a marginal "thumbs down". In Ebert's print review, he gave the film a score of two and a half stars (out of four), saying: "Either you want to see mindless action and computer-generated sequences executed with breakneck speed and technical precision, or you do not. I am getting to the point where I don't much care." He felt "surprised that the plot hangs together more than in the other two films."

Keith Phipps of The OnionTemplate:'s A.V. Club said the film is "business as usual, but it's the best kind of business as usual, and it finds everyone working in top form." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called Mission: Impossible III "a gratifyingly clever, booby-trapped thriller that has enough fun and imagination and dash to more than justify its existence." Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle said that "it's all poppycock, of course, but it's done with such vim and vigor and both narrative and visual flair that you care not a jot." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film a score of two and a half stars (out of four), saying that it "provides lots of action, but too little excitement."

Ian Nathan of Empire said that Mission: Impossible III has "an inspired middle-hour pumped by some solid action" but added that "we now live in a post-Bourne, recalibrated-Bond universe, where Ethan Hunt looks a bit lost." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said that "Hoffman enlivens Mission: Impossible III" but criticized the film's "maudlin romance" and "Abrams's inability to adapt his small-screen talent to a larger canvas." Rob Nelson of the Dallas Observer said that "Abrams's movie is too oppressive, too enamored of its brutality to deliver anything like real thrills; its deeply unpleasant tone nearly makes you long even for [Mission: Impossible II director John] Woo's cartoon absurdities."

Claudia Puig of USA Today said that "Mission: Impossible III delivers" despite "a sense that the franchise is played out and its star over-exposed." Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide described the film as "breezy, undemanding, and a carefully balanced blend of the familiar and the not-quite-what-you-expected." Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer said that Mission: Impossible III is "plenty of fun" despite being "overwrought and overplotted."

Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat said that "you may be mildly entertained, but damned if you'll remember any of it five minutes later." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com said that "Cruise is the single bright, blinking emblem of the failure of Mission: Impossible III." William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer remarked that "the latest [Mission: Impossible film] is just this side of insultingly stupid." Shawn Levy of The Oregonian said that Mission: Impossible III "feels like one of the more forgettable James Bond films—saddled, moreover, with a star who's sliding into self-parody."