10 More Movie Openings That Totally Trolled Audiences

The opening sequence to Mission: Impossible III is oh-so-clever, even if first-time viewers won't realise precisely how clever until they've finished watching the entire movie.

The film opens in medias res - that is, with a scene from later in the story - where Ethan Hunt's (Tom Cruise) wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) is being held at gunpoint by villain Owen Davian (a mesmerising Philip Seymour Hoffman).

As Davian counts down to shooting Julia in the head and Hunt refuses to give Davian what he wants, the sequence appears to end with Julia being shot in the head, before promptly transitioning to the opening credits.

Now, we as savvy audience members surely don't believe for a moment that Julia has actually been shot and killed by Davian. Clearly, the fact that we don't see Julia get shot in the head makes it obvious that Ethan somehow prevents it or somebody else gets shot instead, right?

Well, not quite.

When we return to this scene near the end of the film, "Julia" is indeed shot dead by Davian, suggesting that J.J. Abrams basically played a cruel prank on the audience with that seemingly predictable opening.

But because that's not enough, Abrams goes one level deeper, then revealing that this wasn't in fact Julia at all, but rather Davian's translator fitted with a Julia face mask, while the real Julia is indeed alive.

Well done, J.J., well done.