Mission: Impossible III (2006)

J. J. Abrams shoots half this movie like the camera just chugged an energy drink, and some of the action turns into a blurry smear. The fix is Philip Seymour Hoffman. His Owen Davian never raises his voice, barely moves, and is still the scariest villain this franchise has ever had. The cold open, with Davian calmly threatening Ethan, sets a tone the rest of the movie spends two hours chasing. Cruise finally gets something new to play: a guy with a fiancée, a normal house and a flimsy cover story about studying traffic patterns. The Vatican break-in is slick. The bridge attack is huge. The thing everybody is fighting over, the Rabbit’s Foot, never gets explained, and that’s either a genius joke or a shrug. A 7.0 because Hoffman carries the whole thing and the shaky camera keeps trying to drop it. $858 says you spend the next week calling every mystery object in your house the rabbit’s foot.

What works: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s ice-cold villain, the ambush on the bridge, and finally giving Ethan Hunt a life worth losing.

What doesn’t: The handheld camera is so jittery it smears half the action scenes, and the rest of the team gets almost nothing to do.

Who it’s for: Anyone who likes a spy movie where the villain is scarier sitting still than the hero is running.