I had a good doze of J.J. Abrams' last week; I've just seen M:I-3 and the latest Lost Season Two episode Two for the Road. Things are really going well for this guy: a blockbuster movie, the best show on television land, and Alias, which just returned with all-new episodes to close the season, with ratings hitting through the roof. Who is he? He was the creator of Felicity, Alias, and Lost, and the person Mr. Tom Cruise sought after to write and direct the third Mission Impossible film. There were even rumours spreading that he might work on the next Star Trek movie.
Tom Cruise never really came across to me as an outstanding actor; movie poster boy, maybe, but never an actor to be watched to act. I've seen most of his movies, and I look forward to all the Mission Impossible films all because of the action sequences and I loved the TV series back when I was a kid. I can say that this third instalment was the best among the three: espionage-wise; I guess this is all due to the J.J. Abrams connection. I'm not really sure if I've seen too much of the TV show Alias that I wasn't actually surprised with all the twists in the movie. I was even hatching more twists on my head while watching the film; I had this inkling that Ethan Hunt's new wife was a plant and I read too much in her eyes and actions (Irina Derevko, anyone?) -- maybe she is and we'll get to only see it in the next MI movie. When I saw Greg Grunberg at the engagement party, he was the one who thought Ethan Hunt was boring, I was actually expecting Michael Vaughn to pop in there. This guy, I think, is one of Abrams' favourite, for he appeared in all of his projects that I know of: Ben's flatmate in Felicity, Michael Vaughn's best friend in Alias, and the pilot of Oceanic Air's Flight 815 that got sucked out by a monster and was dropped dead on top of a tree in Lost.
This third MI movie really showed that Ethan Hunt is not some kind of a lone agent (with only Luther Strickell, played by Ving Rhames, on his side) and Mission Impossible is really a team operation: a government's black ops unit. My only peeve is that this film looks so much like Alias only with more elaborate action scenes but stops short of being better. Was it because character development is limited when it comes to a two-hour flick as opposed to a TV series aired one hour every week? Execution of missions in Alias were even better, though I love the Vatican stint; that thing that Zhen (Maggie Q) did in a red, sexy dress has been done my Sydney Bristow a hundred times and even sexier. They even tried to make a character like Marshall Flickman: the techie-guy who wanders off while talking about intellectual stuff and gives silly one-liners; but Flickman's still the best.
Sydney Bristow can kick Ethan Hunt's ass any day when it comes to espionage. Concealment and disguise is a big thing for spies, and Ethan falls flat on his face with them. He was not a convincing priest inside of Vatican; Michael Vaughn did better and even made a character confess her sins to him. Hunt wasn't a convincing Italian DHL delivery boy either; whenever he speaks a different language, you could tell right away that it wasn't his mother tongue; Sydney could make you believe that she's a Swedish national in Stockholm. Ethan Hunt is not the best agent out there -- even daddy spy Jack Bristow could kick his ass.
Speaking of Lost, if you're a fan of the show, you'll get a kick in the gut if you watch the film credits: look out for the Hanso Foundation.
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