Mission: Impossible III

It must be summer, said Sukhdev Sandhu in the London Daily Telegraph. Tom Cruise is chasing bad guys and blowing up stuff again in Mission: Impossible III, Hollywood's first blockbuster of the season. Cruise once more plays 'œnear-bionic secret agent' Ethan Hunt, who's had a 'œtenderness makeover.' He's now driven primarily by devotion to his fiancée, Julia. The film opens with the star handcuffed to a chair as the villain, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, points a gun at his lover. But these efforts to humanize the robotic Ethan never succeed, said Peter Rainer in The Christian Science Monitor. It's just as well. 'œWho really wants to see Tom Cruise get all vulnerable?' The film also amply demonstrates the difference between a box-office star like Cruise and a great actor like Hoffman, who 'œcould have easily camped or cartooned up the role' of Owen Davian. Yet he underplays it to perfectly psychopathic effect. As for the rest of the movie? It's fabulous, said Christopher Kelly in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Director J.J. Abrams ignores the laws of physics to create the most Bond-like installment of the franchise yet, with nonstop action trumping plausibility. So relax and 'œexalt in the superhero fantasy.'

Rating: PG-13

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