Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Mission Impossible 3 (2006)

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Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 05-04-2006, 04:05 AM:

Definately a fast pace action flick with few pauses.

Good action sequences but the story very thin, and there was a lack of hot babes with guns , something the 007 people never miss out on.

My print was not the best ,focus was in and out through out the entire film.

2 out of 5

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 05-04-2006, 11:32 AM:

I also thought the movie was pretty decent. At least it is not going to bomb anyway. Extra bonus points for having Shaun (Simon Pegg) in the cast [beer]

3 out of 5 for me.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 05-04-2006, 11:40 AM:

To paraphrase Chris Rock, M:I-3 makes M:I-2 look like M:I-1. Easily the best movie so far this year. The Star Trek franchise is in good hands.

Posted by Adriaan Bijl (Member # 2191) on 05-04-2006, 04:15 PM:

Overhere in Holland there are some complaints on the focus of the digital "prints". It is not as razorsharp as earlier digital presentations. Does that sound familiar to anybody in the US?

Adriaan

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 05-04-2006, 04:46 PM:

I've watched it on both film and DLP, and the focus issue is present on both. It looks like a stylistic choice to me. It's got that sort of anamorphic smearing going on. The only disadvantage that I saw to the DLP in comparison to the 35mm is that it lacked detail in the blacks.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-04-2006, 05:55 PM:

According to the credit block on the onesheet, the official title of this movie is "M:i:III." [Roll Eyes]

I look forward to the day when all movies will be titled simply by abbreviations. (It'll be a nice nod to the abbreviated storylines in many films.)

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 05-04-2006, 07:11 PM:

Crap, I am going to have to go out and change my marquee again.

[Wink]

Posted by Thomas Jonsson (Member # 1902) on 05-05-2006, 05:06 PM:

Lots of action, less story. 2 out of 5 for me. Excellent print, no
problems at all with focus. Wasn´t really happy with the sound.
Generally good reviews here in Sweden.

Thomas

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 05-05-2006, 10:02 PM:

I thought this was a decent movie. Thank God John "slow motion" Woo didn't direct this one. The action scenes were fun to watch, and Capote makes a pretty good bad guy. I was a bit disappointed in the sound mix though. I thought it was kinda tame for a movie like this. We actually got a complaint from a customer who thought they were listening to analog sound. They weren't... they were listening to a DTS XD10.

Despite the bad sound mix, I still liked the movie.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-06-2006, 03:05 AM:

Good drive-in attendance here... people seemed happy with the program. The local indoor houses looked a bit sparse, though for that matter, MI-3 pulled about 10 times better than the afternoon showings of Flight 93. No focus issues. ETS didn't include DTS disks, but we got that resolved this afternoon.

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 05-06-2006, 10:37 AM:

The Thursday night 10PM show at my local AMC in Harrisburg PA sold exactly 13 tickets.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 05-06-2006, 03:18 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
According to the credit block on the onesheet, the official title of this movie is "M:i:III."

the title on screen in the opening credits is:

Mission: Impossible III

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-06-2006, 04:25 PM:

That must be about the only place in the universe where that title appears.... it's "M:i:III" on virtually everything else.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-06-2006, 06:06 PM:

M:i:III is hip and cool, designed for today's cool people who are cool. Mission: Impossible: III is much too long and is for old fogies and people who are not cool. M:i:II is rad and x-treem! This title alone makes me want to see it because it is for people who are cool and with it. Which studio made this movie? They are too cool for school.

Posted by Jason Winn (Member # 3568) on 05-06-2006, 08:15 PM:

I really liked this movie. I think it was the best one out of all three. It had a lot of action. Very exciting and fun movie. The only weakness was the story (or lack of). I'm not quite sure what it was about. All I know is that the guy from Capote wants a rabbit's foot. Okay. . . That makes sense. I guess. Oh well. What this movie lacked storywise, it made up for in action.

Something interesting I gotta mention. There was one trailer that played before MI:III that caught my attention. And that was. . . NACHO LIBRE!!!! Finally, they made a movie about my life! It should've been called "Nacho Libre: The True Story of Jason Winn." I can't wait to see that one. HaHa!

I saw MI:III at AMC Firewheel 18 in Garland, TX. (That was my first mistake. AMC sucks!) It's a pretty new theatre. I've never been there before. I wanted to check it out. Pretty nice theatre. The presentation was almost perfect. The movie itself was fine. But, there was a minor problem during the trailer pack. It just stopped playing for some reason. Not sure what happened. Probably a brain-wrap or something. It was off screen for about five minutes or so. A manager came in and informed us that they were having some "technical difficulties." It didn't surprise me one bit. Knowing who their booth manager is, I'm pretty sure "technical difficulties" are a common occurence at Firewheel.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-06-2006, 09:28 PM:

Why would anyone name a theater the "Firewheel"?

Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 05-06-2006, 11:44 PM:

I was wondering the same thing.

Hey Jason, is Frank running that place?

As for Mission Impossible 3... I'm actually tempted to go see it... for the fact that they will do a parody of it on Scary Movie 5, I'd like to know what scene they will be referring to. [Big Grin]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 05-07-2006, 09:41 AM:

How about Fireweed.

I am not all that anxious to see this movie, not sure why.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-07-2006, 12:21 PM:

Joe,

Apropos of MI:III when the fuck did American Furniture Warehouse become AFW?

That Jake Jabs is just a Da Bomb!

Shortening things to just initials is just a sign of laziness or thumb fatigue from cell phone messaging. (says the guy who is famous for sending 7-page emails. )

Well I'm off to see Mission Impossible III this afternoon.

IP

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 05-07-2006, 12:30 PM:

Maybe they wanted M:i:III to seem healthier, like KFC? That must be it.

Posted by Jason Winn (Member # 3568) on 05-07-2006, 07:21 PM:

quote: Jennifer Pan
Hey Jason, is Frank running that place?

Unfortunately, yes! [Eek!]

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 05-07-2006, 07:29 PM:

Its better then 1 or 2...3 out of 4 stars.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-07-2006, 11:53 PM:

I found Mission Impossible III (M:I:III) to be pedantic and derivative. It appeared to me to be a two hour allegory about Tom Cruise's new found nuptials to the child like Katie Holmes. I can only assume that Ms. Holmes was otherwise engage in the manufacture of the TomKat baby and couldn't participate in this debacle. I found the emotion portrayed to ring false. And I thought the other actors phoned in there performances just for the paycheck.

The story made no sense and the dialog could have been in Chinese for all I cared.

There is a scene in Thank You for Smoking where Rob Lowe says that the plot point problem can be “easily fixed, it's one line of dialog Thank God we invented the whatever device.” This seems to me to be how the entire Mission Impossible: III script was written.

(Spoilers: If you have never seen a mindless action film before.)

Or How to make an Action Film:

Tense situation, happy back story, troubling development, thrilling action, tragedy, angry boss, troubling development, thrilling action, inevitable obvious plot twist, hero in peril, impossible escape, pointless set-up, less thrilling action, hero runs through scene, amazing rescue in three parts, unexpected heroism, happy conclusion.

So we need three big action sequences strung together with a tenuous story. Since our producer/star seems to be interested in marriage and family, we will have our protagonist interested in the same things. Come to think of it, this movie was structured just like a porn without the nudity. And why wasn't there nudity?

Look, I like mindless action perhaps more than the next guy, but this was not very good, or bad enough to be fun. I liked Maggie Q however. I look forward to seeing her in more movies.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 05-08-2006, 08:20 AM:

I thought this was a great "popcorn" movie. Sure there wasn't much in the way of plot, but who cares. It was pretty much start to finish action. I thought all the action sequences were extremely well done. It moved very well, didn't feel like 2 hours at all.

If you're looking just to get out of the house and have fun for a couple of hours without having to think, MI:III is great.

4 out of 5 stars

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 05-08-2006, 02:09 PM:

"Come to think of it, this movie was structured just like a porn without the nudity. And why wasn't there nudity?"

They wanted the PG-13 rating. Come to think of it the PG-13 rating has ruined many films in the last ten to fifeteen years. They want the gross that will generated from the influx of cell phone using, text message your friend sitting next to you in the movie, teenagers!

[ 05-09-2006, 04:58 PM: Message edited by: Dennis Benjamin ]

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 05-08-2006, 03:47 PM:

This is a perfect example of how movies differ from TV. Almost all of the same people worked on both MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III and ALIAS, and the similarities between the two are crazy. The differences are like a microcosm for the differences between TV and film. The stories are essentially the same. But ALIAS' works better because it has the time to be much more complex. On the other hand, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III has the money to spend on action, and the result is a much more visceral experience.

But aside from that, despite M:i:III's somewhat formulaic writing, it's still as good as it can be given the restrictions. What if you were to disregard any sort of social relevance and compare the script for M:i:III with this year's Oscar winning screenplay CRASH based solely on technique? I think it would be pretty clear which was written by the creator of LOST and which was written by the creator of WALKER, TEXAS RANGER.

Posted by Kyle Anderson (Member # 3504) on 05-10-2006, 08:26 PM:

... Maybe I'm not being stingy enough, but I was thoroughly surprised when I watched this movie (yes I too expected it to suck ass) - it didn't suck; the story (yes there was one if you'd pay attention - not gigantic or convoluted or anything cool like that, but there) was actually interesting and followable.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 05-11-2006, 02:37 AM:

I enjoyed it. It's a good start to the summer. Monaghan's crying face is annoying to look at(I had my fill of it in Northcounry).
And this is where Tom Cruise's tainted star power in recent months has an effect on the movie's power. Scenes where a big star's identifiable acting tics can come across as appealing to the masses can wear thin once the actor's star power dies. And the scene where TOm Cruise struggles to hold off his identity to his fiancee right before they marry and he is shown just staring in frustration came across as laughable and there were snickers in my audience at his facial expression.

But there are many things to like about the movie. The best thing is the team assembled to support Cruise. Maggie Q is damn sexy. Jonathon Rhys Myers fits right in. Keri Russell is surprisingly effective. Fishburne is Fishburne. Crudup. And the Cruise tumbling down the building scene was filmed great.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 05-11-2006, 08:22 AM:

quote: Pravin Ratnam
And the Cruise tumbling down the building scene was filmed great.

I thought the whole jump from building to building sequence was done unbelieveably well. ****VERY MINOR SPOILER**** Even though you know he's going to make it, they did it so well there is actually "intensity" to the scene where you are almost wondering if he will make it.

Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 05-14-2006, 07:58 AM:

Strange after my earlier comments where I made reference to the Bond films now after hearing MI 3 soundtrack many times I could not help but notice the similarity of some of the music to that of "Thunderball"

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 05-14-2006, 11:45 AM:

As long as you are not referring to that crappy music during the credits. I dread cleaning that movie just because of those two [bs]

songs.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-15-2006, 10:48 AM:

The crappiest music in "M:i:3" is definitely that Kanye West garbage on the end titles. I'll sometimes sit through end credits to see what effects houses worked on the project and other technical stuff like that. No chance this time. As soon as that rap crap started playing, I had to be gone. I guarantee all 20 years from now when someone watches this movie and comes across that Kanye crap on the end titles they're going to laugh at how bad and DATED it is.
[puke]

Anyway, regarding the movie, I liked it. At least I liked it a lot more than M:I:2, which sucked oily ass. However, I still prefer the first Mission: Impossible movie over the sequels by a healthy margin. The first one had a better storyline and overall more authentic spy movie feel to it. The characters in this movie seemed more like they were trying to act like members of a Navy Seals team or a Army Special Forces squad. That kind of thing is entertaining, but there is hardly any "spy" quotient involved in it. The story line in this sequel is very thin, but the action set pieces throughout were just enough to lift the show out of dull two-star review hell for me and barely rest on the three star level.

I did find some moments a bit odd in this film. Sorry for making the mistake of not checking my brain at the door. You'll enjoy this film if you think less.

1. The explosive charge the villian puts into people's skulls. That little device provides a rather disturbing and gross moment early in the film. But if one were to try to insert such a device into a person's brain through the nasal cavity in the manner shown, the very act of doing that would probably kill the person almost instantly.

2. Bigger "Duh!" kind of problem. I fought hard not to get pissed at the movie for this kind of stupidity. Can someone please explain to me WHY Cruise needed to leap across the hole in the highway before firing on the helicopter!? WTF? He just took out another aircraft from far away and now he needs to run closer to a helicopter to take a shot? Why not just fire on the 'copter from back behind that car? DUH! Also, other good guys on the road still have guns. Why aren't they firing at the helicopter? Why aren't they firing at the "Jesus Pin" assembly where the main rotor meets the body? It's the most vulnerable part of the aircraft. It's standard military training to fire on that part of the helicopter if you're trying to bring one down. With a little shuffling in the jumping the road hole and then getting the big gun this scene would have been far less stupid.
[Roll Eyes]

The focus of the movie looked pretty good where I saw it (Carmike 8 in Lawton, of course). Although I will agree much of the movie is shot with really low depth of field (lots of blurry of focus stuff in the background). This was probably a 2K digital intermediate job.

The sound mix could have been better. It was pretty loud in DTS, but the bass just didn't seem to be in the right places. Overall it seemed a bit shrill. I expected those track-ball aimed guns early in the movie to have more oomph in their reports. There was a lot of audio in the surrounds, but hardly anything with good panning fly-by effects.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 05-15-2006, 08:12 PM:

CINEMA: Megaplex 20 at The District, South Jordan, UT
AUDITORIUM: 19
PRESENTATION: DLP/Dolby Digital Cinema
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: A little buggy, but we got there.
RATING: Three stars (out of four)

It's big.

It's orange.

The exterior SCREAMS "cheap".

It may be the ugliest megaplex ever constructed.

Megaplex 20's grand opening is this Friday. But they fired everything up for the employees over the weekend and, apparently as a result, decided to soft-launch through this week to work out the bugs. So yes, you can go watch movies there now if you want to.

The entry has a circular brick facade that immediately reminded me of the AMC "Odyssey" facade. "MEGAPLEX 20" hangs off a big mess of a cluster of red tubes. But the entry doors that lead into the massive lobby slide open automatically.

Once inside, things are much nicer with the focal colors throughout being blue, black, and gray. The lobby is laid out like a mall food court with a ticket booth at the end. There's eight eateries including a Mayan Express and a Pizza Hut.

There's lots of work still being done. Equipment and workers are everywhere. But in the midst of it all, there's a ticket seller. Smiling Ticket Seller greets me and I say "I heard a rumor that you're secretly open and showing movies." And she says in really cute and bouncy way, "You heard right!" She showed me a paper list of showtimes, some of which were lined by a pink highlighter. "Pink" indicated DLP presentation.

Auditorium 19 initially looked like a Regal room. But it has better seats and sconces. And better sound than any Regal build I've been in by a wide margin. My wild guess measurement of the screen (done though the magic of finger lengths compared to the exit door) peg the screen at about 45-50 feet vertical. The surrounds are JBL's. The DLP unit is NEC.

When I first entered, the overhead floursecents were on, the booth window was open, and a big "Dolby Digital Sound" map was projected on the screen. Apparently they're firing up rooms on a case-by-case basis if somebody shows up and buys a ticket. I can hear a guy in the booth saying "What are all these hanging wires for? They're just hanging out of this port." Then they got word a ticket was sold. The port door was shut, the Dolby sound map shut off and a guy came running in to turn off the flourscents. Trouble is, he didn't know how. He messed around with some switches on the wall, then looked behind the front wall curtain, then headed for the other side of the screen when guy in the booth radioed, "No, go back to the switches."

He did. Nothing.

"Make sure they're swiched to the right, then you'll have to hit the switch by the door."

So he left the room and the lights went out.

The trailers started sans sound. I figured Booth Guy knew this. He didn't. So when the feature started, I ran out and advised the ticket taker. She got on the radio. When I returned to the auditorium, the sound came on. Then something that has never ever happened before happened. With a push of a button, the projectionist stopped the movie and instantly RESTARTED IT FROM THE BEGINNING!!!

That was awesome.

I never bothered with Mission:Impossible 1. My review of 2 was three words long..."Action Chick Flick". I have four words for this one:

ACTION!

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS!

SHEEP!

Sure the sheep were on camera for about a second and a half, but still. WAY exceeded my expectations. Not bad at all.

The projection was a bit soft in exactly the same way others have noted...with focus being in and out through the film (uh...I mean...digital video). The DLP in this room performed acceptably. It will not be a problem with customers.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-04-2006, 06:15 PM:

Finally caught up with it today 6/4/2006 @ 12:20PM, Regal Cinema World 8 in Eugene, House #7, SR•D. Looked like new except for too much dirt. Rock Steady!® Sharp as a Tack!® [uhoh]

Digital sound warbled badly during the Superman trailer. Attendance about 10.

Easily the best of the MI franchise so far. This is a genre that's been done well so many times it's hard to do something original, yet this almost accomplishes that. I liked it a lot.

There are some shots that are just plain out of focus, intentionally or not. Mostly though this looked very sharp and detailed to me.

3.875 out of 5 stars.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 09-25-2006, 11:33 PM:

We finally showed this this weekend.
And we had showed the trailer for the past few weeks.

I was struck by how much the trailer looked like a onelight, i.e. as if it were not color-timed, color saturation all wrong, almost as bad as a workprint.

Did we just get a bad dupe of the trailer, were all MI3 trailers this bad, or what?

--jhawk