By Dan Dunn
Special to the Daily Press

The movie: Mission Impossible III
The director: JJ Abrams
The stars: Tom Cruise, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Monaghan, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup

Tom Cruise’s curious behavior over the past year or so suggests his sanity may have done a header off Oprah’s couch, but Cruise’s gung-ho performance in “Mission: Impossible III” is an emphatic reminder of why this voluminous presence is widely considered the world’s single biggest movie star. And if you’ve never watched an episode of the spy series “Alias,” it’s time to order the DVD box sets because that show’s creator, JJ Abrams, making his feature film directorial debut in “M:I-3” sure does know a thing or two about assembling an ass-kicking espionage thriller. “M:I-3” is pure edge-of-the-seat entertainment from beginning to end, chock filled with white-knuckle action sequences and tantalizing performances from the Cruise-ettes.

Recently anointed Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a fantastic menace as Owen Davian, the world’s most elusive and dangerous arms dealer. Davian’s considerable bad-guy credentials are laid bare in the film’s nail-biting first scene, in which he demands Ethan Hunt (Cruise) fork over something called the “rabbit’s foot” or lose the only thing he’s ever loved. That would be fianceé Julia (Michelle Monaghan), who never suspected her beloved was a spy — that is, until she wound up bound and bloodied with Davian’s gun pointed at her head. Silly girl.