Mission Impossible 3: when Tom Cruise faced the best villain of the saga

The release of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” is fast approaching. Finally, after many postponements due to COVID. To wait until Ethan Hunt’s return to the cinema, we invite you to come back to the previous opuses, from the style of the staging to the themes, through the highlights.

A session of booster shots that continues with the third episode, JJ Abrams’ cinematic baptism of fire, which puts a fearsome villain in the path of a more human Ethan Hunt – SPOILERS ALERT!!!

No one knows what would have become of the saga today if it had passed through the hands of David Fincher and Joe Carnahan, in turn attached to the production of this third opus before throwing in the towel for the same reason: difference of artistic point of view with Tom Cruise.

Which finds its new colt on the small screen, in the person of JJ Abrams. At the time, this one was not “that” the co-screenwriter of Armageddon and the creator of the series Felicity, Lost and – above all – Alias ​​whose interpreter Ethan Hunt, according to legend, devoured the first two seasons on DVD before offering him the mission. His directorial debut on the big screen.

And it is precisely to apply to the franchise the same principle as in the series led by Jennifer Garner that he is hired. Between his hands and those of his co-screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Ethan Hunt appears to us as a human before being a superman, and this from the opening scene which presents him in a very bad position while his wife is threatened.

Then the one that follows the credits orchestrated by Michael Giacchino, and shows us a man who has hung up and leads a normal life with his partner Julia (Michelle Monaghan). But he will discover that, like Sydney Bristow, he cannot so easily extricate himself from the life of a spy he once chose.

This will manifest itself again in the guise of Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), one of his recruits who falls during a mission in Berlin and whose death he does not manage to prevent after having rescued her. A tragic and surprising event that looks like a founding act for JJ Abrams, which marks his passage from the small to the big screen in “killing” the heroine of Felicity, her first creation.

A transition from the series to the cinema which is also felt in the staging and these plans, tight at first, which widen as the story progresses, even going so far as to make Tom Cruise the one of the details of the Hong Kong decor before he took the plunge. From the top of a tower.

JJ L’AMOROSO

The director does not deny the media of which he was already one of the kings (Lost was launched two years before the release of the feature film), and does not forget either that Mission: Impossible was born in the form of a series. . It is quite natural that he pays homage to him with the masks, a key element of the saga, and by reintroducing the notion of team somewhat set aside in the previous opus.

All in a film that resembles a long episode of Alias, both in its structure (we start at the end and return to the beginning, as in the pilot) and its sense of rhythm, hectic with frequently restarted but flowing action, every time, out of necessity.

Paramount Pictures

This similarity with Alias ​​will sometimes be reproached to him, in the same way as his action a little too cut out and his not very striking staging, which some have qualified as “television”at a time when series were still seen as the poor relation of cinema.

It is true that, if we put the notion of rhythm aside, it is less on the form than the substance that the film is successful, proof that JJ Abrams was at the time better screenwriter than director. Casting Ethan as Sydney Bristow’s big brother, he puts man before spy, so the most memorable scene isn’t a bit of bravery, but a face-off between the hero and his opponent, Owen Davian.

Played by a terrifying Philip Seymour Hoffman, the latter is not a former agent or a mole, but “just” a trafficker who takes very badly the fact of having seen Ethan standing in his way and seeks to make him pay by touching him in the heart.

Paramount Pictures

To this day, we still don’t know what the famous Rabbit’s Foot was that the villain wanted to get his hands on because it was a MacGuffin, a pretext to advance the scenario and which Hitchcock had made himself the specialist. No, the real suspense revolved around Julia: is she really dead, as the chilling opening scene implied? Can the hero continue his work and ensure his protection at the same time? Does he even have the right to this simple happiness?

For the first time in the saga, the consequences of Ethan’s actions on his personal life take shape, while JJ Abrams plays with the notion of family, which very often comes up with a series of oppositions: the one the main character wants found with his companion against the one he forms with Luther (Ving Rhames), Zhen (Maggie Q) and Declan (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) on a mission.

Or the big family of the IMF that the traitor John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) is trying to sell him and on which he will turn his back during an escape to the sound of “We Are Family”a song played over the loudspeakers of the premises by newcomer Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) to prevent any order to intercept the fugitive.

“Who are you? What’s your name? Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? Whoever it is, I’m going to find her. And I’m going to hurt her (…) And then I’m going to kill you, right in front their eyes”

Ironically, this scene marks the saga’s first (and so far last) foray into the buildings of Ethan Hunt’s employer, and this brief return home contrasts with what would become one of the hallmarks of manufactures Mission: Impossible, namely this world tour that each feature film takes.

The sets (here the Vatican and Hong Kong, among others) become commercial stakes, aiming to promote the brand, which was then celebrating its 10th anniversary in cinemas, all around the globe. Each of the countries visited then becomes a selling point.

It is in this that the films are closest to James Bond, while the character of Tom Cruise eased off the similarities with the one who would change his face and take on that of Daniel Craig a few months later.

Paramount Pictures

Much more down-to-earth than with John Woo, despite a high-flying exercise in Asia, the actor is not yet the one who multiplies the exploits and whom we will see born five years later. This does not prevent him from impressing us when he passes under the wheels of a truck, and is blown up on a car by an explosion a few meters from him.

When he becomes legendary for having crashed the computer-programmed camera to follow him during a sprint because of too high speed (we are talking about a peak at 33km/h) or showing an unprecedented vulnerability in his character. In this sense, the choice of JJ Abrams has paid off in view of the development of Ethan and the formula that will be that of the saga in the future.

HUMAN AFTER ALL

It should also be noted that the film was released less than a year after The War of the Worlds, his last significant feature film under the direction of a great director. Without calling into question the qualities of JJ Abrams, Brad Bird, Ed Zwick, Christopher McQuarrie or Doug Liman, the latter are more at the service of Tom Cruise than the reverse, to shape him into characters that say things about him more than roles behind which he disappears.

At that time, and from the filming of Mission: Impossible III, the star speaks of his love for Katie Holmes to whoever wants to hear it. What Oprah Winfrey’s sofa springs still remember as he jumped on it with both feet during a single show, adding an unexpected stunt to his list.

Paramount Pictures

With hindsight, the plot centered on the relationship between Ethan and Julia echoes the private life of Tom Cruise, even if it allows to sow the first seeds of one of the most important aspects of his character: the romantic side. -tragic of the hero of the saga, to whom the normality of a love story is refused while he proves capable of accomplishing the greatest exploits in the world.

Acrobatics that the star could not have achieved because this Mission at the disappointing box office (a little less than 400 million dollars in revenue worldwide, the lowest score in the franchise) was almost his last when Paramount terminated the contract binding them in August 2006.

Previous episodes:

• Mission Impossible: when Tom Cruise took our breath away for the first time
• Mission Impossible 2: When Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle without his feet

Next episode: when Tom Cruise made us dizzy