DJariya

Being a longtime fan of Woo's work, I agree with your sentiments on II. I listened to Woo's commentary track on DVD when it originally came out and I found his comments and takes on the scenes he shot and why he did it to be very articulate. I'm guessing his shooting style and the use of gun play in II may have been a turnoff to alot of people.

It's too bad that Woo hasn't gotten a chance to work on another big scale Hollywood production.

emachine

IV followed by III. Not a fan of the first two to be honest, though the second one is the only one I would call terrible.

Tarantino

I think 3 is probably my favorite, but I haven't seen 1 or 2 for a long time. I just saw 4 and thought it was fairly boring, save the excellent last scene in the parking garage.

I'll revisit 1 and 2 soon as I just picked them up used. However, I don't think I liked 2 very much.

Jory

Forgive me for reviving an old topic, but it's probably better than starting a new one.

Anyway, here's how I rank the franchise as a whole:

Seasons 2 and 3 of the 1966-1973 TV series
Seasons 1, 4, and 5 of the 1966-1973 TV series
M:I:III (2006) and Ghost Protocol (2011)
Both seasons of the 1988-1990 TV series
Seasons 6-7 of the 1966-1973 TV series
M:I (1996) and M:I-2 (2000)

Considering the topic, I'll stick to discussing the films.

M:I forces me to hold back my fanboy rage because of how they turned Jim Phelps into the villain, which for me is the equivalent of turning Batman, Superman, James Bond, or Sherlock Holmes into a villain. There's defensible creative license and there's just fucking wrong. The other big problem with the movie is that the plot is completely incomprehensible, written with the philosophy of "just make it confusing and people will think it's smart." Those problems aside, it's a pretty enjoyable movie with some undeniably terrific moments. The computer room theft isn't just iconic and memorable, it's genuinely masterful. I love how it's done in near total silence, relying on filmmaking skill rather than music and sound effects.

I used to hate M:I-2 just like so many other people, but after watching it a few times I was able to appreciate it as a Road House sort of movie, a movie that's equal parts awesome and terrible and ends up transcending traditional ideas of good and bad. Still, I can say it's my least favorite.

M:I:III is where things start getting really good. It has the best villain of the series, it finally turns Ethan Hunt into an actual human character, the dialogue is generally excellent, and there's an increased focus on teamwork. Not much to say about this one, because I don't have many complaints.

Ghost Protocol is probably the best film in the series, aside from one glaring flaw: it's got the worst, least interesting villain of the bunch. After the film was over, I couldn't remember his name and I couldn't possibly have told you anything about him. Other than that, it's golden. There's even more of a focus on teamwork than there was in M:I:III, making Ghost Protocol the first M:I movie that actually feels faithful to the TV series. The action scenes are the best yet, and perhaps most importantly, they finally realized that these movies are supposed to be fun and added more humor than the first three movies combined.

Looking forward to Part 5. Hell, looking forward to Part 15. These things should be as common as the Bond films.

Cardsfan111

I'm surprised I hadn't seen/voted in this thread yet. I really enjoy this series. In fact, I just watched the first and third films again this month.

III is my favorite with a slight edge over IV.

I still like the first film. Having never seen the TV show, it didn't bother me with the "treatment" of any of the characters.

I own a DVD copy of II, though my recollection of it is that it was average at best.

Draven

4, 3, 1, 2 for me but I enjoy them all.

Supermallet

III is the most cohesive film, IV is the most fun, I is solid, and II is utter trash. I was a big fan of John Woo leading up to that film, so it was a huge shock to me to see him make a mockery of himself the way he did. I knew something was wrong from the very first sequence of Cruise rock climbing.

B5Erik

MI2 was utter crap. I almost couldn't believe how bad it was when I bought the DVD. I was shocked by just how bad MI2 was. Awful.

MI3 and Ghost Protocol were both very good, although I think I prefer MI3 between the two. But I still like the first one the most. It just has the strongest story of all of them.

Rypro 525

4 has the best action scenes, 3 has the best story and PSH as the villian

Solid Snake

That's my ranking as well.

Really hope 5 has a badass villain. PSH was a threat. Also I like Abrams shot it as well. The picture image had some grit to it.

Hokeyboy

I like II... or I did, haven't seen it since 2000. Haven't seen the first since I saw it (and hated it) in theaters in 1996. III was good (with a weak ending), IV was very good (with a weak ending but not as bad as III's).

I don't have any particular love for this franchise but they do OK, mostly. I gotta poop

Lara Means

MI3 is very good. I enjoyed both the team and villain more than compared to Ghost Protocol.

mattysemo247

Same here

hanshotfirst1138

The first has has DePalma's superb camera work and impeccable compositions and design. As an exercise in pure style, it's aged surprisingly well. The plot is incompressible nonsense, but the movie is so stylish, it's almost beside the point. What went wrong with II, I will never know; Moore, Towne, Woo fresh off his best American movie and one of his best ever, but it's a mess. Even most the action sequences are kind of dull, and that's something at which Woo usually excels. It should've been fun, but sadly it's boring and feels like a bad Bond knockoff. I seem to be in the minority, most people love III. It has a good villain and a screenplay that at least puts pretext towards actually dramatic depth, but I think Abrams TV roots are too obvious and the film feels like a glorified TV pilot on places, IMO. But hey, that's just me. I though IV was surprisingly fun all around, Bird has a very deft hand. Like the DePalma film, it's basically an exercise in style surrounding a nonsense plot, but Bird's fantastic compositions and set pieces and camera work are fun to watch. I wish that there was a version of the Blu-Ray with the IMAX scenes though. And one with all of the extras AND a good transfer. So overall, I'd say IV, I, III, II.

Charlie Goose

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Lastblade

IV is the best film, but I enjoyed I the most. III is not bad but feels generic. II is a comedy.

Why So Blu?

1
4
3
2


I love Brian De Palma, therefore, part 1 wins. To this day I still get chills in that early scene where Tom Cruise says "You've never seen me upset." That scene is just badass. 2 had the potential to spin it on its head but the storyline and some of the most horrid dialogue that I really was taken out of the picture. 3 is pretty generic, but I like PSH and I liked the beginning with Kerri Russell. 4 rocked all the way around, but since I have a soft spot for 1, there is no way it would win first place on my list.

GoldenJCJ

I decided to re-watch the series prior to Dead Reckoning coming out. The first couple, I haven’t seen since they were initially released on home video.


Mission: Impossible - This was a lot better than I remember. I haven’t seen this since the VHS days and I remember thinking it was boring and confusing. This time I found the whole thing exciting and it made perfect sense. There was a lot of great De Palma camera work that I missed initially and the action was fairly grounded compared to what is to come in later movies. The special effects really hold up for the bullet train sequence at the end. I was pleasantly surprised. I also couldn’t believe how young everyone looked. Tom Cruise was only in his early 30s when this was made. He’ll be in his 60s for the last couple movies! I also forgot that Ving Rhames was with this series from the beginning. For some reason I thought he came along around Mission: Impossible III. I was happy to see him show up.
Overall: 4/5

Mission: Impossible II - I haven’t seen this one since its initial release on DVD. I was really hoping it was going to be better than I remembered. It isn’t. It’s perfectly fine for a John Woo silly-action movie but it really doesn’t work as an M: I movie. Especially coming directly off the original movie that plays things really straight. There was plenty of crazy action: unbelievable fight scenes, lots of backflips while fighting, plenty of slow motion shots with doves, a pointless car chase, and over-the-top motorcycle chase where they were just trying to make Cruise look as cool as possible, complete with both Cruise and Dougray Scott wearing badass sunglasses throughout…just to look cool. Cruise may be playing Ethan Hunt but this character is nothing close to the first movie, or even the subsequent movies. There was also an over-use of the fake masks in this one. The original at least tried to make it realistic with the characters wearing masks that didn’t look quite right and they stayed in the shadows to hide the imperfections. This one goes all-out with just having the actors playing themselves in mask form. Just stupid. And they did it about 6 times throughout the movie! This isn’t so much a Mission: Impossible movie as it feels more like a Mission: Impossible themed Mountain Dew commercial. To the extreme!!
Overall: 2/5

I’m planning on watching the rest of series in the next few weeks. If memory serves, they start falling more in-line with where the series was eventually heading in part III. I recall really enjoying 3-6.

dex14

I'm rewatching again too, which I did do before Fallout.

Rogue Nation
Fallout
M:I
M:I III
Ghost Protocol
M:I II

B5Erik

It's funny, but my opinions have changed fairly significantly over the last 10 years.

I don't hate MI2 the way I did then. I still don't think it's nearly as good as the rest of them, but it's not as bad as I thought at the time. I think it just took me by surprise, stylistically, and didn't compare well to the first.

And I would definitely pick Ghost Protocol over MI3 now.

As for the rest, I'll have to do a rewatch (again) to really reassess them. I've been a huge fan of all the post MI3 movies.