[Editorial] All 5 Mission: Impossible Movies Ranked (2018)

With Christopher McQuarrie doing his fourth movie; his first sequel and the sixth movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Fallout; I thought I would re-watch all the M:I movies and rank the top 5.

5) Mission: Impossible II (4/10)

Bringing John Woo in was a mistake. He brought with him the sensibilities of directing a Hong Kong action movie of the 90's; and while back then it worked for the Hong Kong cinemas, they do not hold up at all.

The first 20 minutes was just Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton making eyes at each other in slow motion while the wind blew up their hair. And then the last big fight scene had Ethan bringing out some kung fu nonsense that made this flick nothing like what Mission: Impossible was supposed to be.

And the white doves... Watching this today is like drinking a bowl of melted cheese. A shame because the theme song by Hans Zimmer was my favourite, and the opening scene with Ethan Hunt scaling a mountain side was kind of bad ass.


4) Mission: Impossible (5/10)

Biran De Palma is not known for pure action genres. He is great at creating suspense in drama, which was what this genre was (drama-thriller), with a side of action. So this first movie from the popular TV series was very imbalanced between dialogue and action.

Granted the setup was brilliant and the mystery was kept hidden right until the end with a few twists and turns, but I believe after this experience Tom Cruise went and sought out John Woo for the first sequel - to give it more action and explosiveness.

Still, this was a good start to the franchise; though watching it today is difficult as we are now so used to the fast-paced, big budget fanfare.


3) Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (8/10)

Christopher McQuarrie upped the ante in terms of production value as well as the extreme stunts that Tom Cruise had to do himself, does not naturally mean a better movie. While we can all appreciate the intensity and excitement this movie brought, sometimes if you slowed down enough and wonder, you will find questions that you have no answers to.

One of the biggest flaw for me with this movie was how Rebecca Ferguson's character can keep going back to the main villain played by Sean Harris, even after she has messed up or killed so many of his men; and he would still trust her to execute things for him. That was a giant hole that McQuarrie chose to skip over even though he sort of kind of tried to explain that in the end.

But the action sequence under water was one of the best this franchise had to offer.


2) Mission: Impossible III (8/10)

J.J. Abrams got it right. Not only with getting the right cast in, and some of them are even still in the franchise for the sixth one (Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Simon Pegg); but the pacing and the script all brought out the best in the franchise and really set the tone for future movies up until today.

Plus, we got one of the very best villains in action cinema, the late but great Philip Seymour Hoffman. He was menacing, fearless and brilliant; and such a worthy adversary to Ethan Hunt.

Plus the two big action sequences - one on the bridge and the other in China, never let up. Watching it today still put me on the edge of my seat.

1) Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (8.5/10)

In the style of Brad Bird, the humour was definitely more pronounced for the very first time in this one. Bird gave us Jeremy Renner who, after giving the movie many years to digest, was a great addition to the team and it is quite unfortunate that he no longer comes back to the sixth one.

The movie also was much tighter, even jumping from country to country - nothing felt dragged along.

The only thing was we the audience had to go with the story without questioning the details too much, otherwise we would get stuck in one country and unable to move to the next - like how after being disavowed the team still managed to get a private plane, brought all their equipment, accessed an airstrip, and even acquired a very expensive car.

Also, the movie focused more on the good guys and not so much on the main villain played by Michael Nyqvist.  Nevertheless, in terms of fun, this was the most fun.