2. Mission: Impossible 2 - Okay, this is more how I remember these movies. I may have just lumped the trilogy in together as being "bad", but happy to report that the first one is good. The sequel, however, is fucking terrible. John Woo is an incredible filmmaker, but the style of this - with the slo-motion fight scenes is really bad. And hard to watch. It just all looks really fake. 35 minutes in and I could not care less about the plot, the characters, or the mission. it's very boring. I laughed twice, though, so that's something (the Tom Cruise mask...LOL). Also, the line "It's not mission difficult, it's mission impossible" is, perhaps, the best line of the whole franchise.
3. Mission: Impossible III - It's slightly better than the second one, but still bad. I remember watching this when it was first released, as a huge JJ Abrams fan, and I was SO disappointed by it. I will say that I LOVE this cast - Michelle Monaghan is one of my faves, Philip Seymour Hoffman (a fabulous bad guy and scene chewer), Keri Russell (a JJ fave), Billy Crudup, Maggie Q, AND a young Aaron Paul! Probably my favorite cast of the franchise. But the plot is very thin, but seems overly complicated. It's all very obvious, too. And there's really no stand-out scene. I can't remember even ONE action sequence? Maybe the Maggie Q Vatican sequence with the car? It's not really an action sequence, but the she looks great and the car blows up. And speaking of Maggie Q, it's kind of weird that they don't bring her back for future M:I movies. She's such a good action star - and deserves a bigger career, in my opinion.
4. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - Even though there is a 4-5 year gap between almost all the M:I movies, this feels like the beginning of the new M:I era. I remember it being a big deal when this was released with everyone raving about it in IMAX, and I do think that the Burj Khalifa scene does warrant a big IMAX screen. It's the greatest scene of the entire franchise. But, it doesn't make the film any higher than a 3 star movie. And on a rewatch, it's a little hard to pay attention to and it feels very long for a 2 hour film. I like that Simon Pegg continues into the franchise, along with Ving Rhames (the only other actor aside from Cruise who is in all of them). It feels like a solid team, but Paula Patton is a terrible actress and really ruins a lot of the movie. I LOVE Jeremy Renner in this, though - I wish he was in more of them. They do a really good job of connecting his story to Ethan's. And makes it believable that Ethan's wife is really dead (but of course she's not actually dead...lol). And Lea Seydoux has such a strong presence. This is also the first of these films that you really get a lot of the "Tom Cruise run".
5. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation - Apparently, on first watch, I didn't really like this one - rated it 2.5 stars, which is on the lower end of average. I still only remembered one scene - and that's the car chase scene with Renner. The three-point turn in the truck just makes me laugh so hard. It's just perfect comedic timing. This one feels very repetitive. Yet again, the IMF is disbanded and Ethan is on the run. Blah Blah Blah, it's all been done before. Tom Cruise hangs off of a plane, but it's kind of a let-down from the Burj Khalifa scene. They repeat the word "syndicate" an annoying amount of times. It's all just...boring. But, I will say that, while I wasn't that impressed with Rebecca Ferguson when I first watched this, as someone who has grown as a fan, she is definitely the highlight. And that chartreuse dress is EVERYTHING. I think this one just gets annoying going back and forth about whether she is good or bad, but once they build on her character, in future films - she's definitely an interesting folly and foe for Ethan. This was really her big break, and it is a star-making performance. Now she's in everything (I caught up with Silo, watched Dune Part II, and this all in the same week!). I did bump this up to 3 stars after rewatching. I just think that it all feels like filler.
6. Mission: Impossible - Fallout - There are a few things I like & remember about this movie: Michelle Monoghan is back (YAY!!). Simon Pegg finally gets to wear a mask (which became a running joke throughout the series), and Henry Cavill winding up his arms before the bathroom fight. I'm not the biggest Cavill fan, and I think it's very obvious that he's not the good guy in this, but the bathroom fight scene is among the best scenes of the franchise. I also got very annoyed that they literally do the same exact thing with his character that they did with Ilsa in Rogue Nation (is he good? is he bad? Let's keep twisting & turning the story until the end). I think my problem with this is that it also feels like filler - so it's two movies in a row that do very little to move the franchise forward.
7. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - This is going to be extremely controversial, but when I first watched this, I thought "this is my favorite of the entire franchise", but assumed it's only because I don't remember them well (and probably a bit of recency bias). But now that I watched them all again, and in close proximity to each other, it is, in fact, my favorite among the franchise. And just to be clear, my favorite of the franchise tops out at 3.5 stars. It would have been a 4 star film if it were shorter. 2 hours and 43 minutes is way too long for a movie like this. And it would be fairly easy to edit down several scenes to make them feel more intense (and like Rogue Nation with the word "syndicate", the magic repeated word in this is "entity" - maybe edit it down to saying it 10 times instead of 300??). But I really enjoyed this way more than all the previous ones due to mostly one aspect: the women. Vanessa Kirby reprises her role from Fallout, and she's INCREDIBLE. I still think the acting she does on the train, when she wears "the mask" is one of the strongest acting scenes of recent years. She's SO GOOD in it, and the whole scene is so anxiety-inducing. I don't even like Hayley Atwell, but her and Cruise have great chemistry and she provides some levity to the action. Pom Klementieff is a scene-stealer. Also, the stakes just feel really high in this. Like the world does really need Ethan to succeed here. The train sequence is outstanding, but it does last about 45 minutes. Just some tighter editing and this would have been a great movie. I'm excited for Part Two (or whatever they are calling it now), but I'm hoping that's the end. Maybe they can reboot it in a decade or so with a new Ethan Hunt. And maybe they can cast someone I actually like this time in the role.
Ranking:
M:I - Dead Reckoning
M:I
M:I - Ghost Protocol
M:I - Fallout
M:I - Rogue Nation
M:I III
M:I 2
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