Parents' Guide to

Mission: Impossible III

By Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

More boisterous and violent action; teens and up.

Movie PG-13 2006 125 minutes
Mission: Impossible III Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 12+

Based on 5 parent reviews

MarvelDAD
MarvelDAD Parent of 9 and 11-year-old
August 18, 2021
age 10+

Great movie!

this movie has same violence as in rouge nation! Just skip kissing scene.

This title has:

Too much violence
jcmcdowell
jcmcdowell Adult
April 12, 2020
age 13+

Amazing film!

Another great installment to a film series as amazing as “Mission: Impossible”! It is either my second or third favorite film in the franchise...it competes with “Ghost Protocol”. I would highly recommend this to teens and up, and it is NOT a waste of time like the second movie. I love how it starts with a premonition. It immediately gets the audience intrigued with watching the rest of the film. Amazing movie! Everyone will love it!

This title has:

Too much violence
See all 5 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) faces off repeatedly with Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), seemingly over a very expensive ($850 million) world-killing device they call the Rabbit's Foot, but really, over their boy stuff. They are, after all, hero and villain, and they're destined to duke it out for your viewing pleasure. Now married, Ethan has given up field ops to train new IMF agents, but he's called off on an impossible mission by Musgrave (Billy Crudup) to rescue former student, Lindsey (Keri Russell), who has been kidnapped by the diabolical Davian. Ethan's rushed off to meet with his old partner Luther (Ving Rhames), and the two get help in their series of high-octane action scenes, including a couple of beautiful newbies, Zhen (Maggie Q) and Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and an aptly twitchy tech, Benji (Simon Pegg).

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5):
Kids say (42):

This sequel is a boisterous and violent good ride, but for all the fun, it also includes some acknowledgement of costs: emotional, physical, and political. Reconceived by the Cruise-selected writer-director J.J. Abrams, Ethan is here made vulnerable by his love for someone else. That's not to say he's not also the usual Ethan, admirably decisive and troublingly hard-headed.

While Mission: Impossible III 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.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the tension Ethan feels between his job and his personal life/romance in Mission: Impossible III. How does he learn that lying to his wife has various costs, in terms of trust as well as her physical danger?

  • What role does violence play an action film like this? Does its glossy nature distract from the brutality on the screen? Is it necessary to the story? Do different types of movie violence have different impact on kids?

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