Films

Mission: Impossible III (2006)
[2nd watch]

The last time I saw this was in the cinema (has it really been six years? Six?!) I remembered quite liking it, but watching it again now I think it's actually a rather good action-thriller. The Vatican mission and bridge action sequence in particular are excellent.

And I love how things keep going wrong. Everything from big stuff (like jumping off a building several storeys too low or getting the identity of the mole wrong), to little things (like not getting phone signal or our hero alerting the enemy to his presence by knocking some stuff over), goes wrong at some point. Sure, the heroes still win, and sure, some stuff goes fine, but normally the only time things go significantly wrong for the good guys in a movie is when it turns out to be a bluff as part of the plan -- not so here. I liked that.

I may be alone in this, but I've actually really enjoyed every Mission: Impossible film. It often seems like people who like the first hate the second, or people who like the second hated the first, or they just dislike all of them: on IMDb the first has 6.9, the third 6.8, and the second a measly 5.8! I vehemently disagree with all that -- I like all three films, and one of the reasons is how different they all are.

But I've not seen Ghost Protocol yet. I hope it's just as good, and just as different again. It looked similar in tone and style to M:i:III though (whereas the first three differ from each other quite wildly, I'd say), so we'll see. It has 7.5 on IMDb though, so that might bode well...