With Dead Reckoning Part One coming very soon, we look back at the Mission: Impossible Franchise so far to give you our ranking from worst to best…
Tom Cruise is about to kick off his latest cinema salvation exercise and stunt show, continuing his awesomely successful franchise. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is what you might call a dead cert. We kind of know that with Cruise limbering up his best sprints to become Ethan Hunt once again, we’ll be treated to a barnstorming blockbuster.
Has the franchise been a wall-to-wall success? Has Cruise always hit the target like a cruise missile? Which film is the best of the best of this spectacular franchise?
It’s time to find out as we count down from worst to best…
6 – Mission: Impossible III
Coming after a Brian De Palma first and John Woo second, this J.J. Abrams film has become something of the forgotten middle child of the franchise. In many ways, it’s more dramatically engaging and grounded than its immediate predecessor, but there’s a certain debt to the Bourne franchise, mixed with Abrams’ Spielberg-lite stylistics.
The entire franchise pretty much runs on a MacGuffin hunt that takes us right to the brink of a world-ending disaster. Around said hunt we have a degree of (occasionally perfunctory) drama that will also take its toll on the ever-running Ethan.
Though this part has arguably the best villain with the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman searingly intense, his final act probably isn’t befitting his baddy to that point. Additionally, some of the action here doesn’t feel as impressively meat and potatoes as the franchise has become known for. Cruise is still in the thick of it but there’s not an iconic sequence, and its best one, a Shanghai tower descent was thoroughly upstaged in Ghost Protocol’s Burj Khalifa sequence.
5 – Mission: Impossible 2
Okay, so you could well argue that the second one is really the worst film objectively speaking, but this one did create Tom Cruise’s fearless man-of-action persona. From the slightly gratuitous mountain climbing opening to motorcycle jousts, brawls and double-fisted gunplay, Cruise blew audiences away. He’d performed daredevil stunts before, notably in the first film but this was a whole new level.
John Woo’s inimitable style had already reached the phase in Hollywood where he was almost a pastiche of himself, but it works for the film, even though the dramatic triangle between Hunt, the villain (Dougray Scott) and the girl in the middle (Thandie Newton) borders on melodrama. This seems like Cruise’s biggest ego project from the Pantene glistening hair-do to the (then) designer shades and leather jackets. He vogues and strikes a pose like nobody’s business. Meanwhile, Dougray Scott is a solid villain, chomping scenery. This is the least subtle of the entire franchise, ridiculous from top to bottom and Cruise and Woo aside there’s also Anthony Hopkins stealing scenes and Hans Zimmer as unrestrained as he’s ever been (which is saying something).
4 – Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
The series seemed to kick into a new gear from the fourth and there’s been a certain consistency in the visuals and style since and although Brad Bird and Christopher McQuarrie maybe have a more generic style they still handle everything with some flair.
Rogue Nation has Hunt and his team disbanded and being hunted by the CIA. A big issue Rogue Nation had was following the superb Ghost Protocol. That being said, there’s not much between them and Cruise’s epic stunt of the day sees him hanging out of a military cargo plane that’s taking off. There’s usually no hanging around with these films, often opening with action.
Does the cat and mousing and retrieval of MacGuffins sometimes feel rudimentary? A little here, especially as it’s sandwiched between superior films but it really does stand out as a great action film from recent years, proving beyond doubt that Cruise and Keanu Reeves are a select pair of reliable merchants of chaos. If this one lacks something, it’s probably the one in the franchise most devoid of a memorable villain.
3 – Mission: Impossible
The OG, and at least where Cruise as Hunt is concerned, where it all began. The first movie, directed with his atypical dazzle by Brian De Palma is effectively a reboot/sequel to the original TV series, with Jon Voight stepping into the role of Jim Phelps (the second head honcho in the original show) and becoming a middle manager to a new mission leader, Ethan Hunt (Cruise).
By the time the movie came around, fans of the original show were probably not that fussed about how true to the spirit of the show it was. There wasn’t a huge swathe of anger regarding the fact that the once heroic character of the show, now played by Voight, turned out to be a villain. This one plays far more as an espionage-fueled spy thriller than a straight-up actioner, as the franchise would arc into.
It starts the ball rolling with a MacGuffin that needs finding and retrieving. Here it’s (not for the last time) a list of agency operatives. The opening mission in Prague which goes catastrophically wrong is fantastic, possibly as good as anything else in the franchise. Hunt sees his team decimated as an unknown foe picks them off. It also made for a nice rug pull given that big names like Emilio Estevez and Kristin Scott Thomas are killed off so quickly. There are masses of intrigue and doubling crossing as well as Dutch angles and the synergy between Euro crime fugitive spy thriller and De Palma’s stylistics works beautifully. The vault sequence is still great as is the finale.
2 – Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The fourth film in the franchise decided to set a style and tone that directors would adhere to, rather than vice versa. It really worked and Ghost Protocol effectively repeated elements we’d already seen numerous times in the previous three films. We have reluctant distrustful team members, death-defying MacGuffin retrievals and a whole heap of great action sequences. Here, the transition that sees Simon Pegg becoming more integral is also a key element of the success of the last three films. He earns his ever-increasing screen time and importance, whilst Jeremy Renner is a welcome addition (sadly underutilized in the next one).
The most memorable parts take place in Dubai in this forever globetrotting franchise and the Burj Khalifa sequence is incredible (and vertigo-inducing). Paula Patton also makes for an impressive team member, and indeed the fourth film is what really started the prominence of the team dynamic, even more so than prior films. Patton’s presence would certainly have been welcome in future instalments, though she was effectively replaced by Rebecca Ferguson.
1 – Mission: Impossible – Fallout
From its epic skydive to Tom Cruise’s leg-breaking roof jump to hanging out and also flying, a helicopter, Fallout really does up the ante on everything. Is Hunt still working against the clock to track something/someone elusive? Yeah, and he also runs a lot too. It’s a fantastic action movie which hits some nice emotional beats, offering up a sense of personal loss and threat perhaps lacking last time out.
This was Tom Cruise clearing yet another bar he’d raised for himself, but always wary that Hunt needs to engage the audience. We need to be all in on his missions and care about what happens. Much of this is down to the sincerity with which Cruise has almost always played Hunt. He’s getting to a point now where it’s like slipping on an old pair of socks but he still nails it every time.
For the first time too, Hunt gets a physical nemesis who is able to match him fist to fist as well as intellectually and Henry Cavill is a great foe. They have some great brawls whilst McQuarrie adds a visual gloss that’s even more assured than Rogue Nation. He’s got his feet firmly under the table here and nails every beat. This is the best in the franchise and one of the best action films of the last decade.
What is your favourite Mission: Impossible film? Let us know on our social channels @Flickeringmyth…
Tom Jolliffe is an award winning screenwriter and passionate cinephile. He has a number of films out around the world, including When Darkness Falls and Renegades (Lee Majors and Danny Trejo) and more coming soon including War of The Worlds: The Attack (Vincent Regan) and The Baby in the Basket. Find more info at the best personal site you’ll ever see here.
