This supremely enjoyable action-spy flick starts off the summer movie season. You know, the only time any Hollywood executive ever ventures out into the light of day? Luckily for those of use who just love spy flicks, and for those of us who just love action movies, or maybe just for those of us who love writer-director J.J. Abrams (since we know no one loves Tom Cruise anymore), there is a very exciting experience to be found at your local cineplex. Ethan Hunt (the ever masterful Tom Cruise) is not a spy anymore; or at least the kind that is active at least. He teaches wannabe operatives for a living while mingling with his fiance Julia's (Michelle Monaghan) family and friends. His friends? Oh they all work for IMF so of course we don't see them until Hunt is assigned to rescue agent Farris (Kerri Russel, cut woefully short) from Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a very very powerful black market lord. The resuce has a bit of tantalizing back story that Abrams wisely gives to us in spurts, but what interesting spurts. Still Hunt is lead around and around the world looking for a weapon codenamed "the rabbit's foot" to keep Davian from killing his newly minted wife. All the while Hunt is also leading around, and being rescued by, a cracker-jack team of spies including such great actors as Johnathan Rhys Meyers (still killing people) and Ving Rhames (still black).
It's great to finally find an action movie outside of a comic-book with such an alternately intelligent and exhilarating script and its nice to see that Abrams sticks to the M:I legacy of messing with your head in all the right places. The minor problems I have with the movie are that I was never sold on Ving Rhames, who to me remained uninspiring throughtout the film. Don't get me wrong, everyone else from Johnathan Rhys Meyers to Phillip Seymour Hoffman is having a blast......just not Ving. Also the movie falls into cliche on one or two occasions but makes up for it (marginally) by breaking down a very irritating 5th wall in spy flicks. Those last 30 seconds of the film though, they're straight out of Felicity.
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