J.J. Abrams: the Goldilocks of filmmakers

J.J. Abrams' “Mission: Impossible III” isn't quite a series-reinventing film like Christopher Nolan's “Batman Begins.” It stays true to the fundamental core of the previous two films by blowing a lot of stuff up while trying to surprise the audience with twists and turns. But the third film easily improves upon the first two explosive-heavy, story-thin movies, mostly because Abrams brought to it his distinct brand of dramatic storytelling.

His talent led producers to give the creator of “Felicity” and “Lost” $150 million to direct an installment of a summer blockbuster franchise that was his very first feature film. That investment was quite a risk, and it almost paid off.

In his work, Abrams establishes separate universes and then interweaves them with duplicity and mystery. Typically, the two worlds involve work and family lives and the complicated relationships that develop when those two collide. “Alias,” for example, began as the story of a graduate student working undercover as double agent inside a CIA agency while dealing with her untrustworthy spy parents. The combination of breezy action sequences and deeply emotional dramatic tension was, for a while, quite compelling.

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“M:I3” definitely follows this formula, introducing us to Ethan Hunt's fiancée and their domestic life, which, in true Abrams form, complicates Hunt's work with IMF. As a result, the third film is not, as Abrams told this month's Wired, “one of those movies that feel as if eight really bitchin' action sequences were conceived and shoved into some kind of story to tie them together.”

It is, however, almost the reverse: A J.J. Abrams series that feels as if eight really bitchin' months have been shoved into two hours. And herein is The J.J. Abrams Problem.

Abrams’ juggling act
Abrams' television shows are conceptually brilliant and executed almost flawlessly; to broadcast television, he brings an HBO aesthetic and a higher level of intelligence. However, his series have tragically suffered (if not collapsed) under their own weight as the initial conceit devolves into absurdity.

That's because broadcast television industry doesn't allow for clean storytelling. It demands ratings-drawing action and, assuming the show is a hit, the ability to continue that story indefinitely. Not knowing when a story will end makes crafting a coherent, plausible narrative extremely difficult. Because of this setup, Abrams' beginnings work extremely well, but his middles don't, and it's often difficult for fans to stick around until the end.

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He admits as much. In Wired, Abrams says TV is “painfully endless. It was a relief to work on a story with a beginning, middle, and end, and not have to juggle 12 hours in your head.”

For fans “Alias” and “Lost” who felt lost after the story started treading water, this seemed to be an excellent sign of hope for what he'd bring to the movie.

In film, a writer/director has a definite but flexible period of time in which to tell a complete story. In this picture, Abrams has found a medium that allows him to develop a fully formed vision and then execute it.

Early in the film, there's a scene at Ethan and fiancée Julia's house, a set that feels like it was lifted right out of an Abrams' TV show (and not just because of the cameo by Abrams' childhood friend Greg Grunberg, pilot of Oceanic flight 815, onetime CIA agent, and friend of Felicity). The moments the film spends in their home work hard to establish Ethan's normal life, as do flashbacks of him training IMF agent Lindsey Ferris (played by Felicity herself, Keri Russell).

And the first scene of the film alone has more dramatic tension and weight than either of the first two films because Abrams infuses it with multiple layers of consequence, just as he does in his TV work.

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