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10 comments
13 comments
Rank This Matchup or Comment/Reply Below
on 6/29/2009
JJ Abrams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman > Jon Voight and whoever dircted the 1st one
on 8/22/2009
"Whoever directed the first one" would by Brian De Palma. I'm not a huge fan. M:i:III is quite easily my favorite entry in the trilogy.
on 10/1/2009
Yeah, the third suprised me with its quality. The first sequence in the first film still gives me chills though.
on 12/1/2009
I used to have nightmares about Emilio getting spiked in the face... I still do, but I used to too.
on 12/22/2009
In my opinion: Mission: Impossible > Mission: Impossible 3 > Mission: Impossible 2
on 2/2/2010
"M:I:III" was little more than an action movie greatest hits. Nearly every major scene was lifted out of another movie, from the villain rescued on the bridge ("Licence to Kill" and "True Lies") to the hero frantically driving and trying to call the hospital where his significant other works ("Patriot Games"). I'll pick the original, though I'd gladly take the popcorn movie fun of the second one over either of these.
on 2/23/2010
All three Mission: Impossible films had elements that I enjoyed, and they're all actually pretty different from each other. I hated the fact that the first movie had to be seen twice for me to even get what the heck was going on. ("What the hell is a NOC list??") The second film only had enough of a plot to string together John Woo's action sequences. (I definitely turn my brain off to enjoy that movie.) M:i:III, meanwhile, was the best of both worlds to me: full of great action, but actually having a plot. That, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is an absolutely fantastic villain.
on 4/11/2010
Well, neither of these are great. But the first movie at least has a plot and the new one, while more eventful, was not more exciting.
on 9/26/2010
Tough one. They're both good (million times better than 2; I really wanna see the 3-hour cut that Woo had for it though), but I've gotta give it to Abrams by a nose
on 4/1/2011
The first one is a great action movie from a director who knows exactly what he's doing, but it goes off into weird Tom Cruise star territory too quickly. There's so much one can do with that cast, especially Henry Czerny and Emilio Estevez, if it plays out like a regular episode of Mission: Impossible. The third movie gets that and uses the format and the equally wonderful cast to great effect. JJ Abrams is not in the same league as Brian De Palma, but he knows what makes Mission: Impossible tick.
on 12/2/2012
the first mission impossible is to boring and though mission impossible 3 is not great it is better then the first one.
1 > 4 >> 3 >>>>>>>>> 2
MI:III= Best in the series
on 8/4/2013
M:I:III wins.
on 9/21/2013
Mission: Impossible will always be my favorite.
on 9/22/2013
M:I 3 was all over the shop. It had a pretty good set-up and a decent performance from PSH, but it couldn't keep on top of its own story. I seem to remember it ended with a number of plot elements unresolved; what was the chemical weapon PSH was trying to retain? Why was Laurence Fishbourne's character supposed to be bad? (oh wait, now he's good, where did that come from?). Like I said, my memory of it is patchy, but I had a much easier time following M:I 1 which seemed to be a much more self-contained, less flawed film. The original wins.
on 3/7/2014
3 > 1 > 2 for me. One had a great story and ok action, vice versa for two and three had both a great story and great action.
on 3/9/2014
The series gets better as it goes along. While Ghost Protocol is the no. 1 M:I, M:I III is so much better than the confusing original.
on 5/21/2016
Mission: Impossible I was still a chilling classic, it was the best movie in the franchise. It really worked as a overall thrilling flick. III was meh; not a bad movie at all, just a OK movie that was directed by a wannabe.
on 3/31/2017
MI 3 is almost perfect as an action movie. The original is more of a thriller/heist. JJ for the win
on 7/18/2018
I always flip-flop between having these two as either second or third on my rankings (Ghost Protocol being the best). Since all Mission: Impossible are different, your opinions of the films will resemble your tastes in film. M:I is a really good spy thriller and M:I:III is almost exactly what an action movie should be. Personally, since I prefer slow paced spy thrillers where you have to think about the plot over fast paced action extravaganzas. De Palma for the win.
I gotta go with the original...
on 7/19/2018
Mission: Impossible is the only franchise I can think of that got better as they spun movies.
on 8/11/2018
The third act of III is a heckuva Loy better than the original’s climax, but otherwise it seems very by-the-numbers, which is what I’ve come to expect from Abrams. DePalma is the more interesting director. And he had Vanessa Redgrave on board to lend gravitas. The difference here is only a half star out of five in my rankings, and at least neither of these made me viscerally angry, unlike 2.
*heckuva LOT dammit
on 7/20/2021
Two flawed but pretty good movies. I wouldn’t say either are great, but pretty good. I’ll pick M:I3 here since I think it fleshed out Ethan hunt a lot, and focuses on the characters more then the action. That’s not to say I like everything, the villain is weak, and what action is in the movie is the second worst in the series. And while they fleshed Ethan out, there could have been more work done to characterize his wife. But about M:I, while I like it, it can be a chore to keep up with it at times, and the characters aren’t as well defined as they are in M:I3. So while both are good; J.J. Abrahams does something rare, and actually takes the cake here.
on 11/17/2022
The original is much better and honestly underrated, it's still the second best movie in the franchise after Fallout