I’ll try to keep this one short and sweet.

• Yes we’re all so tired of Tom and Katie or whatever he’s calling her these days.
• Yes we’ve participated in some idle chatter about the Miracle Baby and all, knowing more about CruiseHolmesSpawn than what’s going on in their own hometowns.
• Yes we’re probably going to see this anyway, but not as many as you think, as Mission: Impossible is really not that great of a movie franchise.

All I can say is, as someone who watches Alias (but not for much longer) and Lost, I can see J.J. Abrams sticky little finger prints all over this thing. Starting at the middle-end, silly costumes, clumsy spying, and bureaucratic bitch slapping, it’s just a high budget episode of Alias really.

At least there are no vague and mysterious numbers, hatches or bothersome crap like continuity or logic. Just mindless, popcorn movie fun.

It’s all about Tom Cruise trying to save his Katie-look-alike girl, Michelle Monaghan, who was last seen as the glasses-wearing lesbian tech geek in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

He reunites with Ving Rhames, adding others including former Abrams alum Keri Russell, Maggie Q and sexy Brit Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Billy Crudup and Lawrence Fishbourne round out the cast as the D.C. desk jockeys, while Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays the villain.

The whole thing is just action set-up, standard scenes of chases, explosions, fancy Vatican-hosted parties WTF?! where the women all dress as high priced call girls. Just because you’re kicking it at the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, there’s no reason not to where a dress cut down to your vagina.

I could go on and spoil the “plot” for you, but the assholes in the marketing department took care of that with the trailer, commercials and official movie stills. Let’s just say if you can forget the couch jumping, Brooke-trashing, globetrotting hijinks of the Dark One, it’s not a bad way to spend a couple hours.

The Final Snark: I don’t know. Even with the bad P.R. Mission Impossible 3 may actually be the best of the franchise.