Mission: Impossible III

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See also: Mission: Impossible III soundtrack.
Mission: Impossible III
Image:Mi III.jpg
Mission: Impossible III poster
Directed by J. J. Abrams
Produced by Tom Cruise
Paula Wagner
Written by Alex Kurtzman,
Roberto Orci &
J. J. Abrams
Starring Tom Cruise
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Ving Rhames
Michelle Monaghan
Billy Crudup
Laurence Fishburne
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Maggie Q
Simon Pegg
Keri Russell
Eddie Marsan
Bahar Soomekh
Music by Michael Giacchino
Cinematography Daniel Mindel
Editing by Maryann Brandon
Mary Jo Markey
Distributed by USA Theatrical and Worldwide DVD/Video
Paramount Pictures
Non-USA Theatrical
United International Pictures
Release date(s) May 5, 2006
Running time 126 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $150 million USD
Preceded by Mission: Impossible II
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Mission: Impossible III (abbreviated M:i:III) is the third film based on the television series Mission: Impossible starring Tom Cruise who reprises his role of IMF agent Ethan Hunt.

The film was directed by Alias creator and Lost executive producer J. J. Abrams. It was first released on April 26, 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival, and widely released in the United States on May 5, 2006. Filming began in Rome, Italy in July 2005. The film had been kept under extremely tight wraps, and very little was known of its plots or new featured characters during filming. Location filming took place in China (Shanghai, Xitang, and Zhouzhuang), Germany (Berlin), Italy (Rome and Caserta), the United States (California and Virginia), and Vatican City.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Image:Missioniii1.jpg
Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames) during the Convoy Ambush

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has retired from being an IMF team leader, instead opting for a quiet life with his fiancée Julia (Michelle Monaghan), a hospital nurse. The film begins in medias res with Ethan and Julia held captive and threatened by an unnamed man. The narrative then rolls back five days. During his engagement party, Ethan is called in by IMF Operations Director Musgrave (Billy Crudup) for a mission. Though he initially refuses the mission, after viewing a video hidden in a disposable camera he finds out his mission is to rescue his protege, Agent Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), who has been captured in Berlin by Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a prominent dealer in the international black market (and the apparent interrogator in the prologue). He agrees to participate in the mission and meets his team which had been selected for him consisting of Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), Zhen (Maggie Q), and his partner from the first two films, Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames).

The team assaults an enemy stronghold and extract Agent Farris, but she dies when they fail to remove an explosive capsule placed inside her head prior to the rescue. At Lindsey's funeral, Ethan is notified of a "package" sent to him by Lindsey, and discovers that it is a microdot hidden in a blank postcard. Ethan discusses its possible importance with Luther and both decide to keep its existence a secret.

Using information recovered from a laptop in the Berlin mission, Ethan then decides to go after Davian himself, targeting him at a meeting in Vatican City, where a lucrative transaction involving a mysterious object, codenamed "The Rabbit's Foot", is apparently taking place. Neither of Ethan's superiors, directors Brassell (Laurence Fishburne) or Musgrave, have authorized the mission. Before leaving, Ethan reassures Julia of their relationship, and promptly marries her at the hospital in a small ceremony. The team then arrives in Rome and sets off their elaborate plan to abduct Davian, barely avoiding disaster in the process. The operation succeeds nonetheless. Ethan interrogates Davian on the flight home however he is angered by Davian's quiet but confident threats of killing his wife Julia, and attempts to throw him off the plane before being talked out of it by Stickel.

While transporting Davian across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in a convoy, Luther hands Ethan a laptop computer and plays the video message from the decoded microdot: Lindsey had discovered that Director Brassel is a mole, who has been leaking information to Davian about IMF operations. Suddenly, Ethan and his team are attacked by a squad of mercenaries who manage to extract Davian. Remembering Davian's threats to kill his wife, Ethan immediately rushes to the hospital where Julia works. He arrives barely moments too late and finds that Julia has already been abducted. At that moment of despair, Ethan receives a call from Davian with a proposition; he must retrieve the "Rabbit's Foot" from a facility in Shanghai within 48 hours, or his wife will be killed. Ethan, anxious to begin his mission to rescue his wife is abruptly taken into custody by the IMF (accused of masterminding the ambush). However, he manages escape with help from Musgrave who intercepted Ethan's call from Davian and instructs Ethan to go to Shanghai.

In Shanghai, Ethan reunites with his team once more and manages to infiltrate the heavily guarded building containing the Rabbit's Foot and steals it. Ethan then goes to the established meeting place where Davian is waiting. Told to "ask no questions", he is made to drink a substance which drugs him and subsequently an explosive capsule is implanted in his brain. The scene shown in the prologue then ensues: Julia and Ethan are bound to chairs and Davian threatens to kill Julia if he is not told the location of the Rabbit's Foot. Ethan, in panic, insists that he has delivered it. However, after counting to ten, Davian proceeds to execute "Julia".

In a plot twist, Musgrave enters and explains the situation to a stunned Ethan; Davian will sell the Rabbit's Foot to Middle Eastern enemies of the United States, who will provoke a massive retaliation that would result in a hostile takeover of the region. He shows that the dead "Julia" was actually one of Davian's incompetent personnel wearing a mask (similar to the ones used in the earlier two films), used to make sure that Ethan had brought the real Rabbit's Foot. Julia is revealed to be still alive, and Ethan escapes by biting Musgrave's arm before attacking him and taking his phone, which is used to track down Julia's location. Instrumental in this is the assistance of Benji (Simon Pegg), an IMF laboratory technician.

Ethan finally finds Julia, but before he can free her, Davian begins to activates the bomb in Ethan's head. The result is a splitting noise in Ethan's head which renders him incapable of thinking properly and defending himself. Davian then begins to savagely beat Ethan, and before Davian is able to kill him, Ethan manages to make an impressive comeback and hurles Davian out of the window. Davian is killed when a truck runs over him. Ethan improvises a make-shift defibrillator which involves electricity to deactivate the bomb in his head and quickly teaches Julia how to shoot. Julia turns on the power which seemingly kills Ethan, after which she goes on to kill Musgrave. She successfully resuscitates Ethan with CPR, and the two walk out with the Rabbit's Foot as Ethan proceeds to tell Julia the truth about his secret life.

Back at headquarters, Ethan is congratulated for his heroic actions, and then leaves for his honeymoon with Julia, with the blessing of his applauding teammates and promises for another mission which the White House is keen to contact him about.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production notes

  • Actress Thandie Newton was originally approached to reprise her role as Nyah Hall, but the actress declined the role so that she could spend more time with her family.
  • Dean Greogaris and Frank Darabont both worked on the screenplay during the early stages of the film.
  • Production of the movie was halted in late 2004 so that Cruise could work on War of the Worlds.
  • Cruise allegedly made a mock trailer for his friends of the stunts he wanted to perform in the movie.
  • Cruise also asked for permission to film in the Reichstag building in Berlin but was denied access.
  • The first of 10 television spots for Mission: Impossible III were shown during the Super Bowl, twice during WWE RAW, and once after the showing of The Shield on FX.
  • At the specific request of Tom Cruise, Kanye West reworked the Mission: Impossible theme in the same way that Limp Bizkit did for Mission: Impossible II; Kanye's version appears towards the end of the film's credits. In addition, West produced and rapped on a track called "Impossible" (featuring Twista, Keyshia Cole and BJ Thomas) that was to originally appear on the film soundtrack.
  • To promote the film, Paramount rigged 4,500 randomly selected Los Angeles Times vending boxes with digital audio players which would play the theme song when the door was opened. The audio players did not always stay concealed, however, and in many cases came loose and fell on top of the stack of newspapers in plain view, with the result that they were widely mistaken for bombs. Police bomb squads detonated a number of the vending boxes and even temporarily shut down a veterans' hospital in response to the apparent "threat". Despite these problems, Paramount and The LA Times opted to leave the audio players in the boxes until two days after the movie's opening.[2]
  • At 43 minutes into the film, agent Hunt can be seen using the OQO personal computer as his device, which according to Guinness World Records is the smallest fully functional PC. It is not known whether this was deliberate product placement.
  • Besides Ethan Hunt, Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames) is the only character to appear in all three films.

[edit] "Trapped in the Closet" controversy

Main article: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

A blog entry of Hollywoodinterrupted.com in March alleged that Comedy Central parent Viacom canceled the rebroadcast due to threats of Cruise to abstain from the Mission: Impossible III publicity circle.[3][4] These assertions were soon also reported by E! News and American Morning.[4][5] FOX News attributed threats from Tom Cruise, stating, "to back out of his "Mission: Impossible III" promotional duties if Viacom didn’t pull a repeat of the episode," as evidence of "bad blood" between Cruise and Viacom.[6] The Washington Post reported that South Park fans "struck back", in March 2006, and threatened to boycott "Mission: Impossible III" until Comedy Central put "Trapped in the Closet" back on its schedule.[7] Melissa McNamara of CBS News later questioned whether this boycott hurt the "Mission: Impossible III" box office debut.[8]

When asked in ABC's Primetime about his involvement with stopping the episode rebroadcast on Comedy Central, Cruise stated "First of all, could you ever imagine sitting down with anyone? I would never sit down with someone and question them on their beliefs. Here's the thing: I'm really not even going to dignify this. I honestly didn't really even know about it. I'm working, making my movie, I've got my family. I'm busy. I don't spend my days going, 'What are people saying about me?'"[9] A representative of Cruise had also denied any involvement of Cruise with the issue, specifically responding to allegations of Cruise's reputed corporate power play.[10]

[edit] Reaction

Image:Mi 3 teaser poster.jpg
Original teaser poster of the film.

Mission: Impossible III scored mostly positive reviews among critics, and is presently the highest rated Mission Impossible film at the Internet Movie Database, where it is rated 6.9/10.[11] Currently, it sits at a 70% approval rating at rottentomatoes.com, the best rating of the trilogy, although it's "Cream of the Crop" rating is 62%, in between the other two.[12] On the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper gave the film a "thumbs up", while Roger Ebert gave it a marginal "thumbs down".[13]

Opening in 4,054 theaters all across the United States (the 4th largest opening ever), the film easily topped the box-office in its opening weekend. It made $16.6 million on its opening day. It made $47.7 million in its opening weekend, a solid opening yet well below industry expectations and almost $10 million lower than the franchise's previous installment. On its second weekend, the sequel remained number 1 with $25 million (ahead of Poseidon's $22.2 million). The movie remained in the Top 10 at the box office for the first 6 weeks of its release. Mission: Impossible III ended its domestic run with $134 million. It was the second movie in 2006 to pass the $100,000,000 mark in the box office. (The first was Ice Age: The Meltdown).

Outside of the USA, the sequel grossed $70 million for the first five days (in some Asian countries, Mission: Impossible III opened two days ahead of its North American release date) and was easily the box-office champion in many countries. As of February 11, 2007, M:I-III's international box office gross has reached $263.8 million, for a combined worldwide gross of $397.9 million.

In the Netherlands, the film debuted in the week of May 4-10 at #1, grossing a total of € 532,384 in that week. The following week, the film remained on the top position. In its third week, the film dropped to #2 and the following week, fell to #4. Next it maintained the #4 position to drop to #6 (in the week of June 6 - June 14). In total, the film has grossed over € 2,141,162.[14]

[edit] DVD, HD DVD and BD

Paramount Home Entertainment released the film on DVD, HD DVD and BD formats on October 30, 2006.[15]

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • The scenic rural Chinese village depicted near the end of the film, where Ethan Hunt runs in search of Julia and where they stroll afterwards, is not located in Shanghai as characters in the film claimed, but is in fact the ancient town of Xitang in Zhejiang Province, located approximately 90 km (56 mi) away.[citation needed] The night scenes involving the skyscrapers, however, were filmed in Shanghai. The rest of the Shanghai filming was done in Los Angeles.[16]
  • The Virginia Regional Hospital, the workplace of Ethan Hunt's wife, Julia, is actually located in Arcadia, California. The real name of the hospital is Methodist Hospital.
  • In the scene where agent Hunt leaps out of the building after stealing the Rabbit's Foot, he is on the east side of the Huangpu River that runs through central Shanghai. He ends up landing on the west side of the river, near the Yanan Highway, about 2 kilometers away from the building from which he jumped.[citation needed]
  • Ving Rhames and Tom Cruise are the only actors to reprise their roles in all three Mission Impossible films (Thandie Newton was offered to reprise her role, but declined due to a previous commitment).
  • Carlos Ferreira, the set director, also worked with Cruise in War of the Worlds as a website designer, and, although he was unable to provide a website for the film, he was still given credit.

[edit] Connections to other media

  • All three Mission Impossible movies have the signature scene enacted by Cruise coming down or propelling down using wires. There is also an IMF traitor in each film.
  • The film's closing credits thank the Hanso Foundation, a fictional corporation that plays a key role in director J.J. Abrams' series Lost. Also, the logo on the building from which the Rabbit's Foot is stolen from is the same logo as that of "Paik Heavy Industries", a company owned by Sun Kwon's father.
  • Months before the film was even announced or in production, it was parodied on the stop-motion show The Wrong Coast.
  • The scene in Epic Movie where Lucy uses the camera after visiting Mr. Tumnus for the first time is a reference to the scene where Ethan uses the camera at the gas station.
  • The scene where Julia resuscitates Ethan is almost exactly like a scene in J.J. Abrams' show Lost, where Jack resuscitates Charlie in the episode All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

[edit] Video Games

A mobile phone game based on the movie was released by Gameloft.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Scarlett Aborts "Mission"", E!, May 9, 2005. 
  2. ^ "Mission Illogical: Movie Promotion Puts Lives 'at Risk'", May 5, 2006. 
  3. ^ Ebner, Mark. "Scientologist Tom Cruise Blackmails Viacom into Pulling the "Trapped in the Closet" Episode of South Park", Hollywood, Interrupted site., Rudius Media, March 16, 2006. 
  4. ^ a b Ryan, Joel. ""The Closet," the Controversy--and Cruise", E! Online, E! Entertainment Television, Inc., 2006-03-13. Retrieved on 2007-06-16. 
  5. ^ O'Brien, Soledad; John Roberts. "Storms Blanket Midwest; Insurgents Launch Full-Scale Attack on Iraqi Police", American Morning, CNN, March 21, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-10-21. 
  6. ^ Friedman, Roger. "Cruise Ambushed by 'Broke' Studio?", FOX News, August 23, 2006. 
  7. ^ de Moraes, Lisa. "'South Park' Responds: Chef's Goose Is Cooked", The Washington Post, March 23, 2006, pp. Page C07. 
  8. ^ McNamara, Melissa. "Did Bloggers Doom 'M:i:III'?", CBS News, CBS Interactive Inc., May 10, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-10-21. 
    Even political blogger Andrew Sullivan encouraged a boycott of the movie, based on claims that Cruise allegedly forced Comedy Central to censor a South Park episode about scientologists. "Make sure you don't go see Paramount's 'Mission: Impossible III,' Cruise's upcoming movie," Sullivan blogged. "I know you weren't going to see it anyway. But now any money you spend on this movie is a blow against freedom of speech. Boycott it. Tell your friends to boycott it."
  9. ^ "Cruise: 'No Oprah Regrets'", hollywood.com, 2006-04-16. Retrieved on 2007-06-16. 
  10. ^ "Cruise axe for South Park", thesun.co.uk, 2006-03-17. Retrieved on 2006-11-04. 
  11. ^ Mission: Impossible III (2006). The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  12. ^ Mission: Impossible III. rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  13. ^ Ebert & Roeper, Reviews for the Weekend of May 6 - 7, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  14. ^ Business Data for Mission: Impossible III. imdb. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  15. ^ Schneider, Karl (2006-08-11). MI3 to hit DVD October 30. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  16. ^ Seen in the behind-the-scenes section, included in the Mission Impossible III Limited DVD.

[edit] External links


Preceded by
RV 		Box office number-one films of 2006 (USA)
May 7 - May 14, 2006 		Succeeded by
The Da Vinci Code
v • d • e
The Mission: Impossible franchise
Television:Mission: Impossible (original series) · Mission: Impossible (1988 TV series)
Films:Mission: Impossible · Mission: Impossible 2 · Mission: Impossible III
Characters:Jim Phelps · Ethan Hunt · Luther Stickell
Video games:Mission: Impossible (NES) · Mission: Impossible (N64, PS1) · Operation Surma
de:Mission: Impossible III

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