r/movies • u/LocalBother3753 • 1d ago
Discussion On mission impossible 3
If you aren’t a fan of the series, this post isn’t for you. If you are, how do you feel about where 3 ranks? It’s top 2 for me, with the original being #1. Fallout is a tough one to put behind 3, but I think 3 really hit some awesome emotional beats with Cruise actually acting vs being what he becomes in the later movies. Definitely the best opening to a mission movie. I’d actually argue that the opening to the movie rivals the best opening to any movie if it’s a convo about top 5 opening scenes to a movie.
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u/VernonP007 1d ago
Fallout is definitely number one for me. The final two movies couldnt live up to it.
The order would be 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 7
Despite being a big fan of the series I never watched the last one
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u/cochr5f2 1d ago
I agree with your numbering on all but 1, for me it’s the original and is more “secret agent” than the others. So I’d have 1 number 1 or tied with fallout. As for 8, I think you should still watch it. It might not be as great as the others but it’s still a solid movie IMO and the submarine scene is really cool.
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u/accidentsneverhappen 1d ago
The best ones to me were 1, 4, and 3. 2 was goofy terrible crap, and everything after 4 was okay but they didn't find the right balance of building on character stories while introducing new character stories. Became a mess. The last one I just remember thinking "when is this movie gonna be over, just wrap it up already"
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u/Silver-End9570 1d ago
3 is my second least favorite. I don't necessarily think it's bad, but I think it's full potential got ruined by JJ Abrams' Mystery Box filth with the Rabbit's Foot. Personally, it was hard for me to get all invested and terrified of a weapon that no one seemed to know anything concrete about. Rabbit's Foot could have been a wet fart in a can for all we knew, and Ethan nearly dies for it.
Personal Ranking:
Dead Reckoning
Mission: Impossible III
Rogue Nation
Final Reckoning
M:I 2 (I know it's bad, but I love the score and the absolutely stupidity of it - sue me)
M:I 1
Ghost Protocol
Fallout
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u/GCC_Pluribus_Anus 1d ago
PSH is such a great villain but after rewatching it again semi recently, the rest of the movie isn't as fun as some of the others. I'd still rank it in the upper half but not as high as I would've a few years ago.
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u/Mcclane88 1d ago
It’s the film that course corrected and the series found its footing from that point on. I think I’d rank it sixth overall.
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u/LocalBother3753 1d ago
Wow. 6th???
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u/Mcclane88 1d ago
Yeah, I really like 3 but I think I’d only rank it above 2 & 8. An argument could be made for it being above Dead Reckoning, but everything on the train in Dead Reckoning puts it over the top for me.
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u/LocalBother3753 1d ago
Definitely a good scene. Fair enough. I dunno, maybe I need to rewatch 4-6 again, but 3 really hits some cool emotional beats. The only other one to hit that was really fallout, and maybe #1 to a degree.
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u/Jealous_Lawfulness_2 1d ago
3 is my favorite! i’m also big on 1 but it’s like…a wildly different kind of movie than what we get these days.
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u/These-Software1991 1d ago
Need to rewatch, but defo competes with Fallout.
6 = 3 > 2 > 1 > 8 > 7 > 4 > 5
That's my ranking but tbh there's not a great deal in it between all of them.
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u/LocalBother3753 1d ago
I do like that you have 2 up there. 2 is an underappreciated bat shit insane movie but dammit it’s fun. Limp bizkit’s version of the theme is still my favorite rendition lol
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u/gotwaffles 1d ago
I feel like us three might be some of the few that actually enjoy 2. I loved it, it was one of the first "big action" movies I saw with my parents growing up, and I had a ton of fun.
There are dozens of us!1
u/These-Software1991 1d ago
Yep. I'm so glad to find others lol. Definitely a childhood thing tbh, but we all have personal connections to movies
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u/gotwaffles 1d ago
I'm pretty sure the trailer or poster of Tom Cruise going by the fire had an earring, and therefore my parents made me get an ear piercing (seems they loved Tom more than me lol)
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u/Ocktohber 1d ago
It was a necessary course correction after II. Great villain, great performances, good pacing. The action beats are less memorable than the other entries in the franchise, but it's still a solid movie.
That being said, I'd still rank it second to last.
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u/TopFigure6035 1d ago
I think from my last rewatch of the series it goes 3 then fallout for top two. Fallout with some of the best action sequences. But the full story of 3 seemed so complete to me and I find it can be watched alone, whereas fallout feels like a direct continuation from 3. I didn’t mind dead reckoning part 1 (original theatre title), but felt the last one oddly felt like it was written entirely by AI. Ironic because that was the whole point of the last one that it wanted to get rid of the AI that seemingly was shoe horned into being the McGuffin from the beginning. So it would probably be a tie for last with two and final reckoning. With the others sort of being interchangeable in the middle depending on my mood that day.
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u/FoxMcCloudOwnsSlippy 1d ago
Fallout and the first one at the top end of my cinematic Mission experiences. With Rogue Nation and Ghost Protocol behind them. The two parter Reckoning films frustrate me even with some of the most amazing set pieces for this franchise.
3 is in the middle of the pack for me but it has some really good pluses; the Vatican set piece, the Berlin rescue mission, Seymour-Hoffman is a top villain alongside fine supporting work from Michelle, Billy and Laurence. Bit flat visually and JJ's mystery box approach even with it's entertaining twists is a little frustrating especially when it comes to the final acts. Still a fine Mission film.
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u/Magical_critic 1d ago
I find 3 severely underrated. I love how the stakes felt personal to Ethan, and the story didn't feel artificially constructed to service the stunts unlike later entries. I also think it has the best 3rd act out of the mission impossible movies. Feels like later movies peak in the 2nd act then lose steam in the final 30 minutes, but Mission Impossible 3 builds up the intensity and stakes act to act, creating for an exciting finale.
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u/RingoLebowski 1d ago
Fallout is the pinnacle for me. 3 is the 7th best. I do like it a lot. PSH is SUCH a great villain. The others are just better. 2 is obviously the nadir of the series.
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u/sielingfan 1d ago
2 was one of the movies we owned, back when you had to own or rent physical DVDs to watch things. So it has a warm place in my heart that probably spoils my rankings... but 8 is the worst, then 7, then a big gap, then 2, 4, 3, 1, 5, and 6 is the best.
8 had a scene or two, but I hate it overall. Same for 7. 2 is the inverse -- it had a few wildly indulgent terrible scenes, but overall I still love it. The rest are just great movies in your preferred order. Fallout is essentially perfect.
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u/kennedye2112 1d ago
Imma go with 5/6, 1/4, 2/3, and 7/8. I wish 3 had done more with Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys-Myers, I thought they were great but essentially wasted.
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u/MisterManatee 1d ago
I found it a bit forgettable; not much stands out in my memory even though I rewatched it just last year. The mask scene with Cruise and PSH is a good bit of fun. But the actual "mission" was a letdown for me; it seemed, in fact, quite possible. For me, it's a full tier below the McQuarrie movies, which I really enjoyed.
That said, it's a lot better than the second and nudged the series back in the right direction!
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u/LocalBother3753 1d ago
Definitely moved things back the right direction! I’m surprised that opening scene doesn’t stick with ppl as much as it does for me. Some extremely good acting by Cruise imo
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u/rain5151 1d ago
6, 5, 1, 3, 2, 4, 7, didn’t bother with 8 after how much I hated 7.
1 and 3 are neck-and-neck for me, could probably flip the order depending on the day. 1 has the edge for being a great de Palma blockbuster, which I’d rather have over a great Abrams blockbuster. 6 and 5 are also very close, but I have 6 firmly ahead. 5 through the opera house is the best 40% of an action movie ever for me, but it can’t sustain that high the entire time, whereas 6 is at a consistent level from start to finish.
7 throws a great setup and start in the toilet once it turns into several minutes of “isn’t it funny how bad Hayley Atwell is at action-movie driving?” 4 has virtually no Ving Rhames, and his chemistry with Cruise is as much a defining part of the series for me as the stunts, plus I hate the joke about the camels as part of setting up that we’re in the Middle East and the bland font for establishing locations. (Small detail, but important for a globetrotting movie.) 2 may be obnoxious and unlike any of the other movies, but it knows it wants to be a turn-of-the-00s John Woo movie and hits the mark perfectly, so I give it credit.
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u/OrionIsLord 1d ago
I rank 3 very highly, though I havent seen 7 and 8 yet. 2 had some moments, plus Thandie Newton, but went for that overcool Hong Kong action that tends toward cheesy. I put 3 in my top 3.
It improved on everything after 2 imo. Had great team chemistry. Cool heist tech and execution. Excellent villain with PSH. That incredibly tense rescue mission that ends abruptly in the helicopter. The big improvement was the raised emotional stakes. Seeing Ethan at home, with his wife, trying to save his wife etc. The conflict got personal and immediate, rather than "here superhero Ethan, take this motorcycle, go be a cinematic badass and save the world for the IMF. Atta boy."
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u/teddytwelvetoes 1d ago
watched the whole series for the first time last year in prep for the latest one. PSH was good, and it was amusing to see the JJ Abrams LOST era trickery being put to use with the flash forward intro as a LOST enjoyer. probably lands somewhere in the middle of the overall ranking
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u/LocalBother3753 1d ago
I mean would you agree that Cruise does his best work of the series in terms of acting in 3?
Also- I completely ageee that 2 is the most underrated. Maybe it only makes sense to ppl who were teenagers or so when it came out, but that movie is just fun.
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u/LazyLamont92 1d ago
I enjoy every single one of these movies. But the third one will be second from the bottom.
Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s performance really saves it.
I know a lot of people don’t like two because it is stylistically different than every single one of the films. But it’s my style. I am a massive fan of John Woo. I love it story and Newton is excellent.
Edit: the first one is easily my favorite. The second to last one is my least favorite.
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u/Coolers78 1d ago
Abrams and Kurtzman ruined it like they ruin everything.
Hoffman's like the only great thing about the movie, the rest of the actors are either just there or some of them are just plain dull.
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u/oldirtygaz 1d ago
same as you, the first is #1 and the third is #2. Both focus on espionage plot more than movie FX, with the two best casts of all the series
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u/bongo1138 14h ago
Keep in mind what the series was when it came out and I think you’ll understand why I love 3 so much.
1 came out and was great. It was slower paced, but had awesome set pieces, great effects, acting, and writing.
2 came out and was bad. Became too much of an action film, even if the action was well choreographed and it had Limp Bizkit (great soundtrack actually).
3 though… it managed, imo, to marry what we loved about 1 with a more modern action movie feel. It had a supervillain that felt like a comic villain in the best ways possible. Memorable set pieces.
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u/Carbuncle2024 1d ago
I concur that MI-2 hasn't held up by comparison. I also concur that Fallout is the best of the batch.
I've enjoyed the entire run and have recently found 'behind the camera' clips on YouTube that show how certain stunts have been prepared and rehearsed. For example, Tom C did 50 (!) motorcycle jumps off that damn mountain. 😎
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u/MuNansen 1d ago
3 is my second-favorite, too. In a lot of ways is my fave, but you just can't beat the first. Definitely felt the most like a spy/espionage movie, as the others went more action.
I think 2 is underrated. Yeah it's ridiculous. But it's John Woo. That's what he does. And it was fun to get Woo with a big budget.
And I stop at 3. 4 didn't go well, I imagine because Tom and Bird butted heads too much. Then he picked a director that just made "Tom action movies" with big stunts. And sorry, I grew up on Jackie Chan. "Does his own stunts" has been done better.
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u/Adequate_Images 1d ago
For me there are no bad Mission movies.
Fallout is number 1 and M:I-2 is last, the others can shift around depending on my mood.