Missionary Man

Mission: Impossible III

Directed by J.J. Abrams

How shrewd of Tom Cruise to understand that the media backlash that started with the best work of his career-the highly cinematic Minority Report and War of the Worlds-could be turned around with television. This third installment of Cruise's TV-derived franchise was directed by J.J. Abrams of TV's Alias with an uncannily uncinematic emphasis on what should rightly be called "inaction"-stunts, f/x, editing, music, flash-professionally designed to not move you where it counts.

It's remote-control filler-which has become textbook style for our current film era.