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Mission: Impossible 3 ending analysis
2006.05.25 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Reviews | by Andrew Cole
Secret agent of La Mancha. [official site] |
This is part 2 of my Mission: Impossible review. SPOILER ALERT! Part 1 is available.
Altho Fishburne is offered up as a red herring, it is Crudup who is in league with the bad guy. Given that this is the case (the reasons he gives later are a ridiculous neo-con fantasy), why would he not stop Cruise from capturing Davian and the rabbit's foot information? How can Cruise fund and execute that mission without his bosses' knowledge and support? How did he plan to expense the sports car? And once he learns about the mission, why does Crudup sabotage it so clumsily? He sends helicopters and whatnot after Cruise. Why not just accept Davian and the rabbit's foot info, then hand them over to his crooked team, which would conveniently lose them both?
At this point, the plot degenerates completely. |
At this point, the plot degenerates completely. Hoffman gives him 48 hours to get the rabbit's foot for him, which is bizarre, since it's in China. Cruise is treated like Hannibal Lector for some reason, but Crudup helps him escape. But... Hoffman only needed the information before; why doesn't he just get that from Crudup and get the rabbit's foot himself? Instead, he has to trust the info to Cruise and hope his attachment to his fiancee is strong enough to get and then give over a weapon of untold destructive power. Wouldn't it make more sense for Crudup to ask Cruise to covertly get the rabbit's foot? Then he can hand it and Cruise over to Hoffman for his revenge; no need to involve the girl at all, unless Hoffman wants to do it out of spite.
Cruise shows that he is the most honest secret agent ever. |
But Cruise dutifully travels to China, where he is joined by his team, also tipped off by Crudup. They get the rabbit's foot way too easily, and Cruise shows that he is the most honest secret agent ever. He doesn't call Hoffman until the rabbit's foot is actually in his possession—with minutes to spare. A shaky cell phone connection (and Chinese police) nearly ruin the whole thing. It gets weird here when Q gets shot; now a heroic woman could die as a result of Cruise trying to save... a different heroic woman. In a bygone era, Cruise would have insisted on doing this part alone specifically to avoid risking anyone's life but his... and of course the millions of people who could be killed by the bio-weapon he's handing over to a villainous arms dealer.
He's outlived his usefulness and is now only a danger—an incredibly highly-skilled and stupendously pissed-off danger. |
So Cruise then goes to Hoffman and lets himself be captured. Crudup explains himself, and Cruise escapes. Why didn't Hoffman and Crudup kill Cruise outright? He's outlived his usefulness and is now only a danger—an incredibly highly-skilled and stupendously pissed-off danger.
Anyway, the finale makes even less sense, with Hoffman and Crudup dying in thoroly unsatisfying ways. Then she revives Cruise with her nursing skills after having electrocuted him to short-circuit the remote-control, time-release nasal bomb that Hoffman put in him. An ending that directly steals from the best part of The Abyss is just bizarre. It reminds me of how stunned I was at the end of Hellboy to realize that it stole its ending directly from Men in Black. Weird.
f e e d b a c k
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