Pop quiz, hot shots. You’re a diminutive supernova pushing on in years (say 43) who has recently been voted the Most Irritating Movie Star of All Time. There’s been some unpleasant publicity of late, concerning your wacko religious cult and increasingly barmy behaviour. Not one, but two directors have left you in the lurch with your great, big fuck-off film franchise. What do you do? What do you do?
Well, calling J.J. Abrams is a start. The creator of Alias and Lost knows how to knock out a story. He can surely work his magic on a TV-to-film serial previously defined by the fuzziest of logic and haphazard set pieces strung together with no particular regard for narrative or logic.
It might also be an idea to humanise your character. Not too much. We’re not remaking The Virgin Spring here. But we could give the enigmatic Ethan Hunt a kidnapped girlfriend or something. Let’s go for the lovely Michelle Monaghan. She’s hip and happening.
Actually we should draft in a whole team of decent supporting actors to play the back up team (Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q) for impossible missions. Let’s get that family vibe going.
So, now we have killer action, a daring raid on the Vatican and speedboats, but something is missing. An antagonist! That’ll give M;I-3 the shape it desperately needs. Has to somebody good. Someone with the gravitas required to face off the Cruiser. Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman fits the bill. He can play evil. Holy shit, this just might work. This’ll be the best Mission Impossible film ever, even if Tom is no Napoleon Dynamite.