A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.
The writing partners Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, along
with director and co-writer J.J. Abrams, tried to give IMF agent Ethan Hunt a
little more personal stake in the spy game by giving him a fiancée (Michelle
Monaghan). To allay any suspense regarding the action movie cliché of the hero’s
lover being in danger, Abrams opens the film with a sadistic scene of the
villain, Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) attempting to extract information
from a bound Ethan (Tom Cruise) before killing his fiancée. This allows the
anticipation to build differently, knowing what their fate will be and also
knowing that once he capture Davian early in the film, we will see him get
away. Having flesh in the game isn’t quite enough, apparently, because they
also gave Ethan a female spy protégé (Keri Russell) for whom he feels a need to
exact revenge.
Ving Rhames returns as Luther, the team’s computer
expert, remarking about their mission to break into The Vatican that it’s a
cakewalk compared to Langley, referencing the centerpiece break in of the first
film. Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys Myers round out the IMF team, with Billy
Crudup serving as Ethan’s boss and Laurence Fishburne adding severity and
gravitas as the IMF director. The action dutifully pumps along. Abrams has
continually proved himself a whiz of an action director and this is where he had
just begun to cut his teeth. It’s generally a fine effort as far as these
things go.
