Mission: Impossible III (PG-13)
More boisterous and violent action; teens and up.
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- Studio: Paramount Pictures, Paramount Pictures
- Directed By: J.J. Abrams
- Cast: Tom Cruise, Laurence Fishburne, Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Running Time: 125 minutes
- Release Date: 05/05/2006
- Video/DVD Release Date: 10/31/2006
- Genre: Action/adventure
- MPAA Rating: PG-13
- MPAA Explanation: for intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images and some sensuality.
Parents need to know
Families can talk about the tension Ethan feels between his job and his personal life/romance. How does he learn that lying to his wife has various costs, in terms of trust as well as her physical danger? They can also talk about action movies in general, and whether a movie needs violence in order to be thrilling.
Message
Social Behavior:
Ethan rides a motorcycle without a helmet; Ethan lies to his fiancee; villains kidnap Ethan's fiancee, tie her up, and hold guns on her; Ethan and IMF crew operate undercover, so they're lying for a living; villain/mole inside the U.S. government agency.
Consumerism:
7-11 store; Slurpee; Kodak camera; Lamborghini.
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Drinking (toast to engagement, champagne, martinis); villain smokes cigarettes; Ethan drinks a drug to become unconscious during ride to hideout.
Violence
Action violence (explosions, fights, gunfire, missiles, two-chopper shootout, car chases, adrenalin shot to the heart, stabbing, throat-cutting, brain zapped by device through nasal passage); action sequences involve lots of shaky handheld camera; Ethan mourns his student's death (crying and holding body); threat of bioweapon ("Toxin 5"); gizmo called "rabbit's foot" (never explained) threatens world decimation; leaps off tall buildings (falling images); Ethan holds villain as if to drop him from a plane; Ethan zapped by weapon, convulses violently; fight in elevator (Ethan slams multiple men into walls); Ethan bites a villain to escape restraints; Ethan runs into people on the street in Shanghai to reach his destination; some slow-motion crashing and shooting; repeated threats to "kill you."
Sex
One agent wears a sexy red formal gown to go "undercover" at a party (shots emphasize men staring at her long legs and visible back/cleavage); Ethan and Julia show affection (kissing, nuzzling) and her siblings discuss the "new family" they'll be starting; Luther and Ethan joke about marriage to each other; sex scene post-marriage in hospital supply closet (brief and suggestive, shirts off, then cut away); Julia in shower (shoulders up), to establish vulnerability before her kidnapping.
Language
A couple uses each of "ass" and "hell," plus "damn," "sonofabitch," "t--s," and four s-words.
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Cynthia Fuchs
Is it any good?
While the movie tends to privilege Ethan's perspective -- his stunts, his goals, his urgency -- when it cuts to occasional other views, the effect can be jarring. Pursuing his own ends without regard to consequences makes Ethan heroic from one angle, and not a little barmy from another. Ethan's excesses are admirable: he jumps off any building, drives any vehicle, shoots any weapon at any target. But when he risks those close to him, the stakes are different. The scariest possibility in M:I:III is not that Ethan will lose, but that he'll win, and along the way, absorb his pretty little wife into his fearsome orbit.
Other choices
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Parents and kids say
All Reviews
There are 21 reviews.
Better than the first two, great movie
BETTER THAN 1&2
Adult Reviews
There are 9 reviews.
BETTER THAN 1&2

