Mark Thomson

Finally got around to watching this the other day. I've avoided it, primarily because the bad taste MI2 left in my mouth. I couldn't stand the Tom Cruise love-in that was the second one, with its unnecessarily long slow motion sequences - ooh look at me, i'm tom, i'm so great! shudder... Thankfully the third installment is a return to form, and is vastly superior to its egomaniacal predecessor. I'd probably buy 1 and 3, but avoid 2 at all costs.

This one was quite good, story was pretty good, and even though it still focuses on Cruises lead character, there are plenty of subsidiary characters that contribute during the course of the story. Even though the plot was cribbed from True Lies, the new wife and life aspects of the story are relatively minor. It mostly centers around the recovery of the stories McGuffin device - the rabbit foot. Amusingly enough, its never even explained what the device is or why people want it. Worth a rent.

Plot Synopsis:

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has retired from active duty in the IMF and now works as a trainer. He's recently gotten engaged to Julia, a nurse at the local hospital who is unaware what he really does - she thinks he works on modeling traffic patterns for the Transportation Authority. When he is asked to go on a mission to Germany to recover one of his trainees that went missing, he makes up an excuse and reactivates his team. Traveling to Germany, they recover the captured operative, only to have her die during their escape from an explosive device implanted in her brain.

Back at IMF headquarters they are berated about their lack of success. Hunt uncovers information that pinpoints the location of the man responsible for the death of the trainee. His team heads off to the Vatican. They infiltrate the papal city, and capture Owen Davian, substituting Ethan in disguise. They make their escape and attempt to interrogate Davian without success. Back in the US, the convoy transporting Davian is attacked, and he escapes after a shootout on a bridge. Davian has vowed revenge on Hunt and anyone he cares about.

Shortly after, Julie is kidnapped from the hospital. Ethan escapes custody from IMF who are unsure about his involvement with Davian. Davian instructs him to recover the rabbits foot from Shanghai or he will kill Julie. In secret, Ethan's team infiltrate the building in Shanghai and steal the rabbits foot from a research lab.

Taking the cannister to Davian, Ethan is captured and interrogated. Julie is killed during the process. It is then revealed that Ethan's handler at IMF has been working with Davian. He orchestrated the capture of the trainee, to determine how much she knew. He then planted false evidence to mislead Ethan into thinking that the head of IMF was the mole. Julie's death had been faked. Ethan escapes custody, and goes after Davian. He locates her and after killing a number of henchmen and Davian, he is forced to electrocute himself to destroy the exploding implant Davian installed in his brain. Luckily Julie is able to restart his heart. And the ending is left open for yet another eventual sequel.

What's wrong with some people that they feel they have to go out and steal the gates and sections of fencing from a children's playground? I took the kids down to the local park on the weekend, and some scumbag has stolen the gates and pieces of steel fence out of the small children's playground, you know the one where you generally want to be able to stop your children running out into the carpark.

Thieving seems to have become an epidemic with building sites now losing entire bathroom or kitchen fitouts, or all the whitegoods like stoves go missing. But stealing from a children's playground seems the lowest of the low to me. I hope how ever did it is looking over their shoulder, because sooner or later karma is going to catch up with them, and it'll be payback time!

Our work move has degenerated into a sideshow - I keep waiting for the clown car to pull up outside the office and disgorge a collection of brightly colored loons. We've been planning for weeks, but Telstra has seen fit to turn our finely orchestrated plans into a mess of catastrophic proportions. They had two weeks to get the phones on, but decided they didn't need to send out an engineer to check that the lines actually worked. Internet got switched off, so the move commenced. Then we discovered that nothing actually worked. Requesting an engineer results in a four day delay (the same delay whether we request a priority callout or not), and even then it's vague as to when the engineer may appear. They then offered to transfer incoming calls to a mobile, which they screwed up cutting off the office phones. Then at about 3 they cut off the internet, so we're now totally shafted since we're an internet-based company. And they wonder why people are unhappy with their service? So now we're stretched between two locations, with the maximum amount of disruption possible.

Quirky comedy film in the vein of those black Cohen Brother's comedies. I've heard it's similar to Fargo, although I don't remember that one well enough to have an opinion about whether its better or not. I actually quite enjoyed this one. It's not laugh out loud funny, although there are a couple of laughs, particularly when Robin William's character is trying to stash the dead body, and later when he's covering the body in meat so he can fake a bear attack. Holly Hunter is also quite amusing with her bouts of madness, no doubt caused by the bleak white nothing her character lives in.

I enjoyed it, probably more fun than Stranger Than Fiction (at least this one had a sense of humor). The cast are good and the location work quite breathtaking (if you don't live there day'n'out - probably would drive you mad all that white).

Plot Synopsis:

Travel Agent Paul Barnell is having financial problems. He runs a failing travel agency in Alaska, and his wife Margaret suffers from Tourettes and behaves a bit mad. When he fails to collect on his missing brother's insurance policy, he finds a body dumped in the dumpster outside his work. Paul concocts a plan to pass off the body as his dead brother and collect the insurance. He fakes the return of his brother, then his death by freak bear attack. He tries to collect the money, but a zealous insurance investigator starts to pursue him.

Things become even worse when the two thugs that dumped the body are told to retrieve it, and Paul's long lost brother Raymond reappears wanting his share of the money.

All the parties collide in a confrontation out in the arctic wilderness. Raymond's brother is accidentally killed, the two thugs solve the issue of Margaret's madness, Paul realises what really matters, and the investigator learns to be happy where he is. Paul and Margaret get away from the big white.