Mission: Impossible III Critic Reviews

Yes, it's fundamentally business as usual, but it's the best kind of business as usual, and it finds everyone working in top form. Abrams imports and enlarges "Alias'" smooth, stylish, yet remarkably visceral approach to action, and the actors pack a satisfying amount of drama into the moments between action scenes.Read the full review

A gratifyingly clever, booby-trapped thriller that has enough fun and imagination and dash to more than justify its existence.Read the full review

Against sizable odds -- a sense that the franchise is played out and its star over-exposed -- Mission: Impossible III delivers.Read the full review

In Mission: Impossible III, we find out whether it's still possible to look at Tom Cruise and not see a weirdo. The answer is yes, but a complicated yes, because it takes time.Read the full review

Bury the nostalgia. Like the rap twist Kayne West puts into the film's classic theme, this movie is best when it stirs it up.Read the full review

Abrams keeps the action clicking along in 5/8 time, and Cruise is at his scowling/smiling best as he jumps, shoots and leaves. (See Tom run! Run, Tom, run!) Best is Philip Seymour Hoffman as the baddie; the film's best sequence features him playing Cruise playing him at a swank party in Vatican City.Read the full review

In his feature debut, "Lost" creator J.J. Abrams, who got the job on the basis of "Alias," takes the driver's seat with both feet on the accelerator.Read the full review

Hoffman is so proficient in this role that he just about overmatches Cruise and makes the wait until he speaks again in the second half of the film hard to endure with any patience.Read the full review

For all its far-fetched formulations, this new entry maintains more of a dramatic throughline and has the bonus of a villain played with unsparing meanness by Philip Seymour Hoffman.Read the full review