Mission Impossible 3 may not be the hit the original movie was. In this strange piece off Drudge the question was whether a failure was the fault of Tom Cruise:

There are some early reports that Cruise’s film experienced dropped overseas, too. Is all this Cruise’s fault? Or the movie’s fault? After all, reviews have been mixed.

…

On the other hand, here was a proven film franchise (where the sequel was better than the original), a director known for commercial sensibility (J.J. Abrams), and, of course, Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman as villain (but he doesn’t get enough face time in the film, and especially not enough face time opposite Cruise).

Emphasis mine. OK, this guy is an idiot. MI 2 sucked rotten eggs because all it was was 90 minutes of Tom Cruise saying ‘Look At Me, I’m Cool!”. It was the worst movie I have ever seen. All the characters from the first movie were relegated to brief cameos which made no sense whatsoever. And if this 3rd film doesn’t have enough hero vs protaganist its because Cruise can’t seem to leave the camera lense to others. The guy is a flake. And yes, no men want to relate to someone jumpiing up and down on Oprah’s sofa. Cruise has the common problem with early success. He has nothing to challenge him to make him extend himself. Instead of following in Harrison Ford’s footsteps he seems to be travelling the self centerd Michael Jackson path.