Continuing to view these films as barometers of Western cultural trends in entertainment, it’s now 2006 and so we have 24-style “enhanced interrogation” torture scenes, a man-of-the-moment director, a soft, shaky, and somewhat oversaturated digital camera aesthetic, an Abrams Mystery Box™, and that annoying thing that a lot of TV shows did in the mid-00s where the opening starts in medias res then we go back to ‘one week earlier’ or whatever.
This entry is weak, lacking even a central heist that at least made the first two films fun. J. J. Abrams’ oversaturated lighting and colour-grading looks ugly and does no favours to action scenes that never feel very exciting. However Ethan Hunt as all-American family man works better than the last entry’s sexy-daredevil-Ethan.