Ethan Hunt has quit the life of a grand master espionage agent. He wants a normal life and had built up a relationship with the stunning and intelligent Julia, they are together and he trains prospective agents away from the danger and pain of a life as an undercover agent. When one of his recruits is trapped in combat and being tortured for information he is forced to jump back into the murky world of an international spy. When his home life is endangered and his family on the brink of destruction, he has to face up to his responsibilities and go after the super villain Owen Davian. But as the stakes get increasingly higher, the CIA after him and his whole happiness on the line will he ever be able to restore some normaility into his life?

Action adventures are becoming grittier, darker and more serious by the day and when Mission Impossible 3 opens with Cruise, beaten and bleeding tied to a chair being forced to see his fiancée cruelly slaughtered you know that this is going to join them. It is a tense scene. It is a scene displaying great acting. It is a wonderful introduction. But by lord it's a shock! It then allows the film to zoom back in time -leaving the audience gasping for breath and moving from the edge of their seats- to a place where Ethan Hunt and his wife are happily throwing a party for their families. This allows for a Seven-esque hit of emotion, you know what will happen, but Abram insists on showing you their sweet and highly touching relationship. Then the time structure changes to Tom Cruise on a quest for 'The Rabbit Foot' a mysterious artifice that may save his lovers life. Then a stomping twist comes and messes the film's time structure again. Mission Impossible is like a constant race and if your not savvy you may miss some integral parts. If you stick with it and pay it your full attention you will probably revel in the productions free and sprawling structure and sense of self.

Mission Impossible 3 has some of the tensest and most awe inspiring scenes of action that you are likely to see this year. Fast cars, death defying base jumps, exhilarating fight sequences and eye popping vehicle chases make for a thrilling and adrenaline fuelled two hours, the stunts are phenomenally well choreographed and have a real sense of immediacy and elegance to them. The production manages to generate the boyish excitement that made the Indiana Jones so much fun with the grit and sinister atmosphere of a more gown up thriller and delivers the spectacle whilst still keeping things realistic and understated. One scene which sees Cruise running across a bridge whilst being shot at from helicopters and being thrown through the air by an explosion succeeds in being one of the most nail biting, furiously astounding and impulsively enjoyable sequences in recent memory. Boring is not a word you could use to describe the latest summer blockbuster, but it never becomes over blown or pushes the action too far, Abrams shows remarkable restraint -unlike John Woo when he made the trite and convoluted Mission Impossible 2- and always reigns the action back to add human interaction and an engaging wit. Any fan of Abrams television show Alias will see many elements of that show mixed into the film and some of the smaller action scenes have been plucked right from that source, which is just fine by me. Alias is an example of amazing television and Abrams and he injects the same untapped energy, pleasing emotion and jaw dropping stunts that made that programme such a gem.