gfdgFilming began today on the latest great vaporfilm, Mission: Impossible 3. The first shots took place on a speedboat on the Tiber River, which for all you geography heathens, is in Italy.

The film has been slowly getting to this point over the last few years, and I have to admit that I was a serious naysayer, at least in terms of believing the thing would ever get made. But never underestimate the perserverance of a man who is Clear.

JJ Abrams, the Other Joss Whedon, is directing the epic tale of incomprehensible spy antics (I’m guessing on that, based on how incomprehensible the first two films were), with stars Keri Russell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne and Ving Rhames. After the Tiber is used up, Cruise and Company will head to St Peter’s, where his character will execute a daring manuever in order to save people from being baptised so they can have their engrams read.

I am going to go out on a limb here, but is the Mission:Impossible series the least interesting franchise of all time? Are there people out there really waiting for this film on any level beyond "big stunts?" Is there even a real continuity to this stuff?