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Mission: Impossible III

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See also: Mission: Impossible III soundtrack.
Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible III poster
Directed byJ. J. Abrams
Written byAlex Kurtzman
Robert Orci
J. J. Abrams
Produced byTom Cruise
Paula Wagner
StarringTom Cruise
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Michelle Monaghan
Ving Rhames
Laurence Fishburne
Billy Crudup
Keri Russell
Maggie Q
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Bahar Soomekh
Simon Pegg
CinematographyDaniel Mindel
Edited byMaryann Brandon
Mary Jo Markey
Music byMichael Giacchino
Distributed byParamount Pictures (Domestic)
UIP (International)
Release dates
May 5, 2006
Running time
126 mins
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$150 million USD

Mission: Impossible III (abbreviated M:i:III) is the third film based on the television series Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise reprises his role of IMF agent Ethan Hunt, and stars along with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Crudup, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Maggie Q, Sasha Alexander, Simon Pegg and Laurence Fishburne.

The film is directed by Alias creator and Lost executive producer J. J. Abrams. It was first released on April 26, 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival, and widely released in the United States on May 5, 2006. Surprisingly, the US release was later than 19 other countries around the world, which had already released the film on either May 3 or May 4. Filming began in Rome, Italy in July 2005. The film had been kept under extremely tight wraps, and very little was known of its plots or new featured characters during filming. Location filming took place in Berlin, Italy, Shanghai, Xitang, Virginia, and California.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has retired from being IMF team leader, wanting to have a quiet life with his fianceé Julia, a nurse (Michelle Monaghan).

The film begins in medias res with Julia and Hunt being threatened by Davian. The narrative then rolls back five days. During a party, Hunt is called in by IMF Operations Director Musgrave (Billy Crudup) for a mission. He refuses at first, but after viewing a video hidden in a disposable camera he finds out his mission is to extract his protegée, IMF Agent Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), who has been captured in Berlin by criminal arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). He agrees to participate in the mission and meets his team consisting of Declan (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Zhen (Maggie Q). The team succeeds with the extraction but Lindsey dies 4 minutes later, when a nitroglycerin capsule bomb, placed in her head by Davian, detonates. At Lindsey's funeral, Hunt receives a call from a mail forwarding service to say that Lindsey sent him a package from Berlin. Hunt collects what turns out to be a postcard containing a microdot underneath the stamp.

Hunt then decides to go after Davian himself, targeting him at a meeting in Vatican City in two days' time, from information found on a destroyed laptop from Berlin. The mission is not cleared by Hunt's superiors, IMF Director Theodore Brassell (Laurence Fishburne) or IMF Operations Director Musgrave. Before leaving, Hunt tells Julia that he is going away on a business trip. She believes/knows he is feeding her lies, but he convinces her that their love is real by marrying her in the hospital where she works. In the Vatican City the team make Hunt look like Davian through the use of a realistic mask. Hunt is able to retrieve a briefcase given to Davian containing information about a biohazardous material known as the "Rabbit's Foot" (a MacGuffin), and capture Davian in the process. Davian is being brought back to the United States when Hunt attempts to get information out of Davian by dangling him out of the plane, but he refuses to say anything, instead threatening the life of Hunt and his wife.

While transporting Davian over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Luther hands Hunt a video screen containing the film on Lindsey's microdot. The video message from Lindsey says that Davian received a call from Brassell's office, which is how he knew that Lindsey would be in Berlin. Someone in the IMF office is a traitor. Around this time, an Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (apparently a Scaled Composites Model 396) appears and starts firing guided missiles at the bridge, blowing large parts of it up. It is escorting a helicopter, from which masked commandos mount a rescue operation to free Davian. Hunt is able to shoot down the drone with a G36K, but runs out of ammunition when attempting to take down Davian's helicopter. Hunt shortly receives a phone call in which Davian has captured Julia and threatens to kill her in precisely forty-eight hours unless Hunt retrieves the "Rabbit's Foot" from a facility in Shanghai. Hunt is immediately surrounded by a team of IMF agents who have been ordered to take him into custody, and after a chase, Hunt is captured. He is then secured to an interrogation table in an IMF interrogation room. Brassell and Musgrave enter and after Brassell leaves, Musgrave mouths to Hunt that he knows that Davian has Julia and gives him a blade with which to free himself. During transport to a holding cell, Hunt breaks free using the blade Musgrave smuggled to him and ambushes his three escorts. He uses a stolen radio to mimic Brassell's voice and provide conflicting orders to the pursuing security team and slips out of the building in the confusion. After making his escape, Hunt flies to Shanghai where he meets his team there.

Hunt base-jumps off a building to gain access to the roof of a building in which the Rabbit's Foot is being held. Hunt and his IMF team successfully retrieve the Rabbit's Foot with five minutes to spare. When Hunt goes to the meeting location with the Rabbit's Foot, he is drugged into unconsciousness; when he awakens, a nitroglycerin capsule has been implanted into his head. Although Hunt says that he has given Davian the Rabbit's Foot, Davian insists on being given the real Rabbit's Foot. He shoots Julia through the leg when he becomes tired with Hunt's increasingly desperate pleas that he is telling the truth. After Hunt has run out of time to explain, Davian finally shoots Julia in the head and then leaves the room, allowing Musgrave to enter and explain the situation to a stunned and grieving Hunt. Davian will sell the Rabbit's Foot to Middle Eastern enemies of America, who will provoke a massive retaliation when they use it in the near future. America will then move in with its military presence and clean up, with billions of dollars worth of contracts. Musgrave reveals that they couldn't be sure that Hunt hadn't double-crossed them at the handover, so they threatened Julia's life in front of Hunt. Musgrave rips off part of Julia's mouth to reveal...Davian's former head of security / translator, who has been wearing a realistic mask resembling Julia's face. When Musgrave places the phone close to Ethan's face to let him know that Julia is still alive, Hunt escapes by biting Musgrave's hand. Musgrave falls and Hunt manages to grab a pen from Musgrave's shirt pocket with his mouth, uses it to unlock his handcuffs, and proceeds to use Musgrave's cell phone to trace Julia from the phone's call.

Hunt runs for nearly a mile through Shanghai and finally finds Julia, but they are discovered by Davian before they can escape. Davian activates the bomb in Hunt's head and begins to savagely beat him; he then claims that he's going to kill Julia in front of Hunt, but in a struggle, Hunt is able to push him outside where Davian is hit by a truck and killed (though his death is not actually seen). Hunt improvises a make-shift defibrillator to deactivate the bomb in his head and explains to Julia how to use and reload his Beretta 92F, before asking her to apply the defibrillator. Julia activates it, destroying the detonator circuitry but also stopping Hunt's heart. Before Julia can resuscitate him, she is forced to kill Musgrave, who has arrived with the Rabbit's Foot. She frantically tries to resuscitate Hunt, and begins pounding on his chest when he doesn't respond, which shocks him back to life. As they walk down the streets of Shanghai, Hunt explains to her that he works for an agency called the Impossible Missions Force...

Back at IMF headquarters, Brassell tells Hunt that his actions have attracted the favorable attention of the White House, who have offered him a special position. Hunt says that before he does anything, he is going to enjoy his honeymoon with Julia. In passing, Hunt asks Brassell what the Rabbit's Foot exactly is, but Brassell says that he will tell Hunt if he promises to stay with IMF. Hunt tells Brassell he'll send a postcard, smiles, and runs off with Julia, away from his smiling and applauding team.

Template:Spoilerend

Production history

  • Production of the movie was halted in late 2004 so that Cruise could work on War of the Worlds.
  • Cruise allegedly made a mock trailer of the stunts he wanted to perform in the movie for a group of his friends.
  • Cruise also asked for permission to film in the Reichstag building in Berlin but was denied access.
  • At the specific request of Tom Cruise, Kanye West reworked the Mission: Impossible theme in the same vein that Limp Bizkit did for Mission: Impossible II; Kanye's version appears towards the end of the film's credits. In addition, West produced and rapped on a track called "Impossible" (featuring Twista, Keyshia Cole and BJ Thomas) that was to originally appear on the film soundtrack, instead the track will appear on Kanye's new album: Graduation
  • To promote the film, digital audio players were placed in 4,500 randomly selected Los Angeles Times vending boxes which would play the theme song when the door was opened. However, the red boxes did not stay concealed, sometimes falling on top of the pile of newspapers, and were widely mistaken for bombs. Police bomb squads detonated boxes and, in one case, temporarily shut down a veterans' hospital to address the "threat." Despite the problems, Paramount and The LA Times opted to leave them in the boxes until two days after the movie's opening.

Reaction

File:Mi 3 teaser poster.jpg
Original teaser poster of the film.

Mission: Impossible III scored mostly positive reviews among critics, and is presently the highest rated Mission Impossible film at IMDb, where it was rated 6.8/10. It received one "thumbs up" and "one down" by the well-known film reviewers Ebert and Roeper.

Opening in 4,054 theaters all across America (the 4th largest opening ever), the film easily topped the box-office in its opening weekend. It made $16.6 million on its opening day. It made $47.7 million in its opening weekend, a solid opening yet well below industry expectations and almost $10 million lower than the franchise's previous installment. On its second weekend, the sequel remained number 1 with $25 million (ahead of Poseidon's $22.2 million). As of July 16, Mission: Impossible III's North American total stands at $133.4 million, currently the 5th highest-grossing live action movie of 2006.

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 July 16, M:I-III's international box office gross has reached $228 million. With a combined gross of $361.4 million worldwide, MI:III is one of the top movies of early 2006.

In the Netherlands, the film debuted in the week of May 4-10 at #1, grossing a total of € 638.792 in that week. The following week, the film remained on the top position. In its third week, the film dropped to #2 and the following week, fell to #4. Next it maintained the #4 position to drop to #6 (in the week of June 6 - June 14). In total, the film has grossed over € 2.079.825.[1]

In terms of story, many fans of the original series were very happy to see a more team-oriented film. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance also garned much acclaim. Some fans noted similarities to JJ Abrams' spy show Alias.

Positive:

Passing:

  • Chicago Sun Times [6]

Trivia

  • The very last company thanked in the credits is The Hanso Foundation from the TV series Lost. Propably, this is because MI:III director J.J. Abrams co-created that show.
  • When Brassel describes Owen Davian as an invisible man, he sidebars by telling Musgrave, "That's Wells, not Ellison, in case you feel like being cute again." By this, Brassel means that Davian seems to be physically invisible wherever he goes, à la Wells' The Invisible Man, instead of being socially unrecognized like the protagonist in Ellison's Invisible Man.
  • In the week of May 19-21, it made $103,535,579 at the box office, making it the second movie in 2006 to pass the $100,000,000 mark in the box office. (The first was Ice Age: The Meltdown).
  • In The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert refers to the movie, not by the common "M-I-3", but by the phonic "Miiii".
  • The sequence that takes place inside Vatican City shows various women, including agent Zhen, wearing short, sleeveless dresses. However, in reality, the Vatican has very strict dress codes that prohibit clothes that show the legs above the knees and the arms past the elbows.
  • Ethan Hunt uses one of his passports with the Czech name Pavel Sobotka (which he probably still has from his mission in Prague in the first Mission Impossible) to fly to Shanghai. He says two sentences in Czech: "V Číně jsem ještě nebyl. Je tam hezky?" (I haven't been to China. Is it nice there?) while his passport is being checked.
  • The scenic rural Chinese village (Xitang) near the end of the movie (day scenes) where Ethan Hunt is running through is not located in Shanghai as characters in the film claimed. The night scenes involving the skyscrapers and the oil truck, however, were indeed filmed in Shanghai.
  • In the scene where agent Hunt leaps out of the building after stealing the Rabbit's Foot, he is on the east side of the Huangpu River that runs through central Shanghai. He ends up landing on the west side of the river, near the Yanan Highway, about 2 kilometers away from the building from which he jumped.

References

  1. ^ Boxoffice NL
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ [3]
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ [5]
  1. ^ Betty Boop. "Scarlett Aborts "Mission"". E!. May 9, 2005.
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