Mission: Impossible III vs. Mission: Impossible

10 comments

13 comments

JJ Abrams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman > Jon Voight and whoever dircted the 1st one

"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.

Yeah, the third suprised me with its quality. The first sequence in the first film still gives me chills though.

I used to have nightmares about Emilio getting spiked in the face... I still do, but I used to too.

In my opinion: Mission: Impossible > Mission: Impossible 3 > Mission: Impossible 2

"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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

M:I:III wins.

Mission: Impossible will always be my favorite.

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.

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.

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.

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.

MI 3 is almost perfect as an action movie. The original is more of a thriller/heist. JJ for the win

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...

Mission: Impossible is the only franchise I can think of that got better as they spun movies.

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

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.

The original is much better and honestly underrated, it's still the second best movie in the franchise after Fallout