Summer in Hollywood began with a big bang courtesy of TV guru (but first-time feature director) J.J. Abrams and established commodity Tom Cruise. Packed with big thrills, emotional chills and brutal kills, Mission: Impossible III has it all and then some. It’s on DVD today.

The TV series that spawned the film franchise was always too cool for school, mixing spy stories and cutting-edge gadgets with heavy-hitting talent like Peter Graves and Martin Landau. It ran for 168 episodes and spawned a brief 50-episode revival in 1988 that teamed Jim Phelps (Graves) with a new Impossible Missions Force. The concept was perfectly suited for a big screen adaptation, which happened in 1996 and got fans talking in more ways than one. Brian De Palma (Scarface, The Untouchables) directed the cerebral first installment, which introduced Tom Cruise as a bright young IMF agent named Ethan Hunt. The film had the guts to wipe out nearly its entire big-name cast in the first half hour, thus establishing quite effectively that you couldn’t count on anything for the rest of the film. (The credits sequence, an homage to its TV heritage, remains massively cool still today.) The rest of the film certainly didn’t disappoint in terms of surprises. It was the nature of those surprises that soured the film for some hardcore fans, when the villain of the piece turned out to be none other than Jim Phelps (played in the film by Jon Voight). John Woo directed the second, which moved too far away from the team aspect of the franchise and focused most of its attention on overwrought, operatic visuals and close-ups of Cruise’s flowing mane of hair. (An excellent special edition DVD of the first film is available now in a nice two-pack with its sequel.)

Mission: Impossible III isn’t as cerebral a film as De Palma’s, nor is it flashy or over-the-top like Woo’s. What it is is damn near perfect, with credit going to Abrams and Cruise for hammering out a surefire formula that incorporates everything that makes this concept tick.

It’s six years after M:i:II. Ethan still works for IMF, but he’s out of the field. He’s an instructor now, training the next generation of agents. He’s also a fiancé, engaged to a sweet, lovely young doctor named Julia (Michelle Monaghan). But when his most accomplished pupil, Lindsey (Keri Russell), goes missing, fellow agent John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) asks Ethan to take it to the field one more time to find her. It seems that Lindsey was hot on the trail of Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a trafficker in all things illegal and evil whose ability to stay several steps of the world’s law enforcement agencies has become legendarily troubling. And as terrified as Ethan is that his secret life will ruin the life he’s trying to build with Julia, he can’t leave Lindsey to a wolf like Davian. He decides to go in. And he won’t be going alone.

Ving Rhames is back as computer guru Luther Strickell. New recruits Zhen (Maggie Q) and Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) make up the rest of the team; Zhen fights as good as she looks, and Declan can drive or fly anything. After a harrowing, high-action helicopter rescue with flying that would make Han and Chewie proud, Ethan has no choice but to continue the mission until Damian is taken down. What it might cost him, however, could be more terrible than even Ethan can imagine.

What M:i:III does better than either of its predecessors is establish an emotional connection that carries us through right to the end. Any Lost or Alias fan can tell you that Abrams knows how to keep TV viewers coming back week after week; what he accomplishes in M:i:III is the culmination of years of solid storytelling experience combined with a budget and a schedule to do all the things he’s always dreamed of but didn’t have the means to produce within the confines of a TV series. The action here is huge. We’ve all seen that killer shot from the trailer where Ethan is running away from a crashed vehicle and a missile zooms in to blow it sky high, creating a shockwave so powerful that Ethan gets slammed into a parked car so hard that its windows shatter. The sequence, which takes place on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, combines the claustrophobic terror of the ambush scene in Clear and Present Danger with derring-do that would be right at home in an Indiana Jones movie. Every element — from the helicopter filled with snipers to the unmanned Predator drone firing missile after missile to the raw intensity of Ethan’s dire need to survive the assault — comes together so beautifully that there’s more good stuff in that one sequence than everything that happened in the first two films combined.

Because quite frankly, the Ethan/Cruise combo has never been so massively unstoppable. In the trailer, Davian asks Ethan if he has a wife or a girlfriend. “I’m going to find her,” Davian says chillingly. “I’m going to hurt her.” And once the inevitable happens, every word, every movement and every action that comes from Ethan Hunt is driven by a determination that Cruise sells every second he’s on screen.

The reason this film is so much better than its predecessors is that it’s got the heart, the danger and even the humor (thanks to Rhames and Shaun of the Dead genius Simon Pegg as a jittery gadget man) that the other films lacked. It doesn’t take itself as ridiculously seriously, choosing instead to tell an emotional story that grabs you and never lets go. There’s truly a sense of team this time. A sense of family. That’s why it works.

And let’s not forget the contribution of Oscar winning dynamo Hoffman, who from this point on shall be known as Philip Seymour Awesome because he can do anything and he can do it better than you. He’s terrifying here, and brilliantly so.

So be sure to grab this one on DVD; it’s one of my favorite films so far this year. This is it. This is why we go to the movies.

It’s the first of August as this is being written, and the biggest guns of summer have already been trotted out by Hollywood. X3 got a head start on the pack in May and pulled down massive numbers (upwards of $230 million domestic) despite being abrupt and a bit underwhelming. But numbers like that denote a lot of repeat business, which proves that Marvel’s mutants are still a massive draw for audiences regardless of how rushed the finished product might have been. Then along came Superman in a film that’s only original idea involved turning the Man of Steel into a deadbeat dad. At present it’s sitting relatively pretty at $185 million domestic, but it has also already dropped out of the top 10 less than a month after its release, with Superman being beaten by the likes of Little Man. Yikes.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest has slaughtered everything in its path, breaking nearly every box office record imaginable and a few that hadn’t even been invented yet. In just 16 days it had made more than the entire theatrical run of its predecessor, and as of this writing sits atop a $360 million mountain of domestic cash. Not bad at all, especially considering that the film, though fun, overstays its welcome a bit with an overlong running time, doesn’t quite muster the magic of the original and ends on a big cliffhanger that will hopefully not have its impact lessened by whatever it is that’s passing for audience attention spans these days. Cars and Click did well with the family crowd. The Devil Wears Prada has done massive business, while other comedies like My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Clerks II and You, Me & Dupree aren’t lighting up the box office in the same way that last year’s massively successful Wedding Crashers or The 40 Year Old Virgin did. M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water was a sweet, simple and well-cast bedtime story, but it has also floundered on the business end. For my money, the best summer movie of 2006 has been the trailer for next year’s Spider-Man 3. That is the hand we have been dealt in the summer of 2006.

And now, sliding in under the radar, arrives Miami Vice, which finally managed to dethrone Pirates from the top spot with a decent $25 million bow. And I have a sinking suspicion that a lot of people who saw it this weekend walked away very disappointed in what they saw. It’s not a bad film by any means. In fact, it’s quite good. But it’s not a summer blockbuster in the typical sense, and nothing at all like anything audiences were likely expecting.

In most cases, TV shows that become movies are exaggerated to the point of being unrecognizable from the source material. Just look at Charlie’s Angels or Starksy & Hutch or The Dukes of Hazzard. But what about Miami Vice? While the bright clothes and conspicuous soundtracks of the 1984-1989 TV series might get some snickers from today’s younger audiences, don’t forget that the show itself was ahead of its time in its depiction of a pair of vice detectives who battled their way through the seedy Miami underworld and sometimes found themselves dangerously close to being devoured by it themselves. Series creator Michael Mann has made some fine films in the intervening years (such as Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans and Collateral to name but a few) and returns to that world now as writer and director of the feature film. Colin Farrell and frequent Mann collaborator Jamie Foxx reprise the roles of Detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs made famous in the ’80s by Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas.

Don’t expect to recognize anything beyond the characters’ names, which might be a hindrance to those expecting a carbon copy of the show. Shot on digital video, everything looks raw and unprocessed. There’s very little vibrant color and very little character development. The action isn’t staged or articulately choreographed; when it happens, it happens fast and it feels very real. (Jamie Foxx has one action moment in particular that’s so quick and brutal that it might just be remembered as the summer’s most bad-ass moment when all is said and done.) The look of the film goes a long way toward making it all feel urgent and real, and it was a big risk for Mann to take, especially considering that most people who go to the film will likely be expecting it to look the way the series did. There are boats and guns in the film, and sexy cars and even sexier women. But these things are never the focus. For that matter, Miami itself is really never even a character in the film (though the film it at its best when the action is taking place there). Mann set out to make a gritty, realistic police procedural that takes the audience through a single deep cover investigation. For the most part, he pulls it off.

We’re dropped right into the film with no credits and no setup. (And it works.) Crockett and Tubbs are on an undercover assignment but get pulled away by a frantic call from a fellow cop whose cover is blown. Things go from bad to worse, new players enter the scene and Tubbs and Crockett agree to take this one to the limit. The mission takes them to South America and into the dangerous territory of drug kingpin Arcángel de Jesús Montoya (Luis Tosar), his seedy security chief José Yero (John Ortiz) and his lieutenant (and lover) Isabella, played by gorgeous (and capable) Chinese actress Li Gong (Memoirs of a Geisha, 2046). Ortiz is excellent here, both sleazy and sneaky, while Gong balances confidence and vulnerability.

Crockett romances Isabella for the sake of information, but gets in over his head when his heart starts doing the talking. Lots of double-crossing commences until the action finally makes it back to Miami for a standoff that brings it all to a damn fine conclusion after the film’s middle act spends a bit too much time meandering on the romance.

Farrell and Foxx are awesome, and have their work cut out for them in a script that makes no time for character development. These guys are simply the guys, and they are partners, and they effortlessly radiate the necessary macho vibe. It’s all we really need to know. The film also boasts the coolest firepower you’ll see all summer, but doesn’t go overboard in how violence is presented. Everything happens in a real, realistic manner that serves the film well; Mann deserves much praise for setting that mandate and sticking to it.

If you go in expecting a carbon copy or an exaggeration of the original series, you won’t remotely get it. If you go in expecting a solid, no-nonsense Michael Mann film that shoots straight and feels like the real thing, you’re in for a treat. It’s not the movie that will save the summer of 2006, but for what it is it’s a fine piece of work.