Director Brian De Palma
Starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart
Rated M
Score 4.5/6

An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization.

Director John Woo
Starring Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton
Rated M
Score 5/6

I.M.F. Agent Ethan Hunt is sent to Sydney, Australia to find and destroy a genetically modified disease called “Chimera”.

Director J.J. Abrams
Starring Tom Cruise, Michelle Monaghan, Ving Rhames
Rated M
Score 3.5/6

IMF Agent Ethan Hunt comes into conflict with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer who threatens his life and his fiancee in response.

Okay, time for another mega review and this time I am looking at the first three movies in the Mission Impossible franchise. For those of you who might be interested the franchise has a total a total of 6 movies and has taken in $3.570 billion at the box office with 2 more movies scheduled for release in 2021 & 2022.

I will admit that watching these movies I did feel a little bit old, it was also kind of interesting to see Tom Cruise age 10 years over the course of the few days it took me to watch these movies (Cruise was 34 in the first movie).
These movies are definitely the type of movies that need to be watched on the largest screen you can possibly manage because there is more then a few action sequences that loose their impact most notably for me was the rock climbing sequence as well as the car tango sequence in Mission Impossible 2. There is also clear difference in how each of the directors approached each of the movies. The first movie though it tried to be different from the original television series seems to be the movie that is most like a television episode. You only have to look to the small scale of the pre-credits sequence compared to the rest of the franchise as well the credits themselves that would be at home being used in a 90’s action series. Personally I feel that the heist sequence at Langley is one of the more memorable cinematic heists of the 90’s.

MI2 is clearly the flashier movies in the franchise, which is to be expected from a director like John Woo. When this was originally released in the cinema as best, I recall I didn’t like it that much and I have found that I have grown to enjoy this movie. I love the action sequences in this and Thandie Newton is brilliant as Nyah, who is the heart of the final act of the movie.
Dougray Scott was a great villain as Sean Ambrose in MI2 but in comparison Philip Seymour Hoffman as Owen Davian was the better villain in MI3.
MI3 is definitely the darker of the three movies that I watched and its very watchable, I enjoyed the sequence in downtown Shanghai. The biggest problem with the movie is JJ Abrams’ obsession with the ‘Mystery Box’.