New cinema releases this week

Not many films released this week as Hollywood starts gearing up for the latest batch of summer blockbusters (more on that later). The big film of this week is the new dad in town, Mr Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible 3.

Now I'm not that big a fan of the franchise so far. Number one was okay in a lazy Sunday afternoon TV kind of way. I cant stand number 2. I'm a big fan of John Woo, but not a big fan of the majority of his Hollywood efforts and I didn't feel that his style suited the Mission Impossible story. The main problem I've had so far is that the whole idea behind the TV series was that the mission's success depended on the teamwork of the group as a whole. While Mr hunt has certainly had help from a few cohorts along the way like Ving Rhames, Jean Reno etc, most of the success of the mission has depended on one man alone.

That said, there are positive indications that this year may have turned the corner. This time Mr Cruise has entrusted the direction and writing to current favour of the month JJ Abrams (the man behind the Lost and Alias TV saga's). Okay this guy is a bit of a rookie in the direction department, but he's certainly proved his creative flair with his TV efforts. Mr Cruise has a stellar supporting cast list in the form of Ving Rhames, Lawrence Fishbourne and, fresh from his Ocar Win, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The word on the street is that this time around the mission is accomplished with a more team-based effort.

Lets keep our fingers crossed that this proves to be the first of a good bunch of summer releases.