Tom Cruise has made some films that prove he can be a good actor. I think particularly of Magnolia, though as recently as two years ago he turned in a very credible performance in The Last Samurai. Lately, his career seems to have been tossed in favor of his public image. As he raves about Katie Holmes and Scientology, his acting skills have gone to hell.

War of the Worlds -- in which Cruise felt more like an intrusion into the movie than its hero -- was bad enough. In Mission: Impossible Trosiemme Redux he is even worse. He never tries to act his part -- he’s Tom Cruise and always recognizably so, the same expression on his face regardless of the moment or the mood. Whether he’s leaping off a tall building or watching his wife being tortured, he’s stoic, solid marble, with little human about him.

In M:I-3, Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, also seems to be stoically stupid. Hunt is battling bad guy Owen Davian (a surprisingly two-dimensional Philip Seymour Hoffman) for the possession of something called the Rabbit’s Foot. Hunt doesn’t know what the Rabbit’s Foot is, yet he’s willing to risk his life, and take the lives of many others, to get and protect it. Each Mission: Impossible movie has begun, as did each episode of the 1960s television series on which they’re loosely based, with a message delivered to the Mission: Impossible team that includes the statement "Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . . ." Any sane hero would have used that loophole to bow out of this one.

But then we wouldn’t have a movie on which to hang cool explosions and fights. In that respect, M:I-3 delivers excellent nonstop action, and that’s what the three stars are for. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is blown up, and, in a daring aerial heist, Cruise jumps off a skyscraper into what seems a void, only to land on another skyscraper and slide down its roof. Computer effects are seamlessly mixed with live action to create these thrilling scenes, but there are also many routine action sequences we’ve seen before, with different actors, different extras, and different pyrotechnics. Regardless of the actor playing him, James Bond pulls these off with charm and humor. Hunt, as played by the stone-faced Cruise, does not.

If you watch M:I-3 for the explosions and action sequences, you won’t want your money back, and you’ll breathlessly await the HD DVD version so you can re-create its inane action in your home theater. But if you expect anything more, it’s not there. Cruise’s impossible mission, should he choose to accept it, is to get his acting chops back in shape.

• Go Back