I just know you’re probably wondering, Keri who?
Well…we can’t all be in the loop.Russell, best know to many as the titular fickle pickle from the dearly departed WB show Felicity, is, in no short measure, the catalyst to what transpires in Mission: Impossible III.
A catalyst, per Dictionary.com, is a substance, usually used in small amounts relative to the reactants, that modifies and increases the rate of a reaction without being consumed in the process.
Such is Russell’s presence in M:i:III, and as it has been in other movies before it (most recently in the overlooked The Upside of Anger). Even in the smallest of roles, she elevates her co-stars’ game while remaining memorable and quietly powerful and revealing new things about her talent along the way (she kicks it good in a ballistic action scene).
Russell’s a star, and seeing her shine brighter and brighter every year, slowly but surely, is fascinating, heartwarming, and just a little bit frustrating (because she should be everywhere by now – but she’s much too low key for that...unlike some people...and I love her for it). So your mission this weekend, should you choose to accept it, is to discover her.
This should be easy.
M:i:III finds IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) retired from active duty, though he has remained involved with the agency to train new recruits (like the one played by Russell). Hunt is drawn back into action when Owen Davian (Capote’s Philip Seymour Hoffman), a conscienceless international weapons and information provider, hits too close to home and eventually kidnaps his unaware fiancée (Michelle Monaghan).
As mentioned in a previous thread, J.J. Abrams (the mastermind behind TV’s Felicity, Alias, and Lost), making his feature-film directorial debut here, has revitalized the franchise by showing us what Hunt is up to when not in spy mode.
He an co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (both Alias vets) have done a terrific job at balancing the respective cerebral and visual elements of the first Impossible movies to complement them with a much-needed jolt of character development that should help ensure another Mission for Hunt.
As a result, M:i:III is, for those familiar with Abrams’ oeuvre, quite Alias-ish (the music was even composed by longtime collaborator Michael Giacchino, and look, there's frequent Abrams player Greg Grunberg), perhaps a bit too much.
I have seen Jennifer Garner try to compartmentalize her spy work with her personal life and go on missions that were on the impossible side on TV. In this movie, Cruise’s Hunt goes through a lot of the same things Garner’s Sydney Bristow has, so, and strictly speaking as an Alias and Abrams fan, M:i:III isn’t the most original.
It’s still a lot of fun, though, as Hunt and his team – including his old friend Luther Strickell (Ving Rhames), transportation expert Declan (Match Point’s Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and background operative Zhen (newcomer Maggie Q) – travel the globe to save the day.
And, really, I’ll watch Russell in anything she is in, however short her screen time is (she and Abrams were much more a selling point than Cruise and his over-the-top promotional tour could’ve ever been).
She truly is the match that sparks the M:i:III fuse (cue in the theme song), one that should burn nicely into blockbusterdom. Now go on and complete your mission.
My Rating ***
Photo: Paramount Pictures.
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