Mission: Impossible III
2006movie
People
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Amazon Prime Video
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Paramount+
Philo
YouTube TVAmazon Prime VideofuboTVParamount+PhiloYouTube TVThe resolution feels rushed, and the implications of the mission’s fallout are never fully explored. Still, the emotional closure for Ethan and Julia largely compensates for this narrative brevity. Mission: Impossible III earns its 4/5 rating by marrying high-octane espionage with character-driven storytelling. J.J. Abrams’ entry doesn’t reinvent the spy genre, but it revitalizes the Mission: Impossible series, setting a new tone for the sequels to follow.
Mission: Impossible III is the action movie equivalent of an “intimate epic.” Like Abrams did before with his ABC spy drama Alias, the filmmaker grounds the extraordinary exploits of his spy — this time, it’s IMF’s all-star operative Ethan Hunt (Cruise) — firmly in a character-driven, relatable world. When we find Ethan after the slow-mo, flying dove exploits of John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2, he is engaged to Julia (the insanely likable Michelle Monaghan) and no longer in the field.
