Mission: Impossible III: Critic Reviews

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

Although he slams into stationary objects with his customary zeal, Tom Cruise is off his game here, sabotaged by a misguided attempt to shade his character with gray.

Here we are again for a third jog around Mission Impossible track and it's turning into a very tired experience.

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

Director J.J. Abrams, creator of such TV hits as Alias and Lost, makes a reasonably impressive feature debut with the best installment of the series.

If the pulse never quite races, the mind does boggle.

"M:i:III" is too oppressive, too enamored of its brutality to deliver anything like real thrills.

Logic and humanity would probably gum up the (fire)works. The Mission: Impossible template is about being resourceful, using gadgets in interesting ways to infiltrate the Vatican or swing Tarzan-like over the rooftops of Shanghai.

The summer's first action epic does exactly what it's supposed to do, more clearly than M:i:I, and more likeably than M:i:II.

M:I:3 is big, cacophonous entertainment, crackling and explosive, a giant bag of Pop Rocks for the eyes.

Mission: Impossible III will make you jump up and down with exuberance, just like its star.

All the popcorn season really wants is a good reason to see super-fit bodies flying around on a big screen, and M:I:III gits 'er done.

There are no flourishes to savor. Instead, there are big-deal stunts.

The grand finale? A fistfight, after which somebody gets run over. Listen, if I want to see that kind of action, I don't go to Shanghai. I don't even go to the movies. I go to the South Bronx and stand outside a bar.

There is a theory that action is exciting and dialogue is boring. My theory is that variety is exciting and sameness is boring.

Uneven but lively.

Whatever your feelings about Cruise, Mission: Impossible III is nirvana for thrill seekers.

A smart, tightly directed thriller that could serve as the template for film schools teaching Summertime Escapism 101.

A perfect blast-off for the summer movie season and the rare sequel that's notably better than its predecessors.

Director Abrams seems to have attended the Tony Scott Extreme Closeup Academy.

As idiot movies go, this one is as sub-mental as you might expect.

My final reaction to Mission: Impossible III is one of bemused tolerance and even mild absorption in all the silliness.

The high-octane juice audiences crave in big-budget action films surges propulsively through Mission: Impossible III, in large measure due to Tom CruiseTom Cruise, who seems determined to give a persuasive human impersonation of a Ferrari.

[The film] offers up its explosions and chases with minimal artistry.

If Mission: Impossible 3 is the first pitch of the popcorn-movie season, just two words come to mind -- butter up.