Jess and I went to see Mission: Impossible III a couple of weeks ago. (Some spoilers indicated below.) To beat the crowds, we picked a Monday evening and avoided the city centre theatres, heading out to the Hoyts cinemas at nearby Victoria Gardens. Not only did we beat the crowds, but when we arrived the place felt abandoned. Not exactly paying attention, I absently zig-zagged through the empty cordoned queue area while Jessica watched ruefully, shaking her head, and joined me at the ticket counter.
There we met with a young woman holding a walkie-talkie, who looked very unsure of herself as she sold us our tickets, then radioed ahead to ask a member of staff to go man the ticket taker’s position for a few minutes as we made our way there. Sure enough, he appeared just as we got to the little podium, where he ripped our tickets and directed us to the third door on the left.
As we entered the cinema, we were surprised to find the lights were down and there was already something playing on the screen. It was 8:40pm and the movie wasn’t scheduled to start until 8:45pm, so I figured the projectionist must have decided nobody was showing up for that session and started the pre-show advertisement reel ahead of schedule, hoping to make an early night of it. As we made our way to our seats, however, I couldn’t help but notice Tom Cruise’s unmistakable grin on the screen—the film was already in progress!
Yes, it’s got Keanu Reeves in it. I still haven’t forgiven him for his role in Constantine (which could have been a brilliant adaptation of