6. Or is it 7? I'll remember as I go!:

Mission: Impossible 2

It bears repeating that this is a John Woo sequel to a Brian de Palma film and that's fucking sick. Though it is also the M:I movie whose Wikipedia plot synopsis begins with this sentence: "Bio-chemical expert Dr. Vladimir Nekhorvich sends a message to the IMF for Ethan Hunt, an old friend of his, warning that his employer, Biocyte Pharmaceuticals, forced him to develop a biological epidemic to profit from its remedy." This was a movie I really wanted to have aged well, given its premise and its director, but this just lacks the star power that makes these movies fuck.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

I FEEL WEIRD PUTTING THIS ONE HERE BECAUSE IT MAKES THIS WHOLE SERIES SING - but this is why nerds that decided their anti-nerd cinematic universe of choice was Fast & Furious get the side-eye. Ghost Protocol is in retrospect pretty fucking weak, living on stunts and dying on characters that have nothing to offer - hell, I remember liking Paula Patton back then, and there are some fun gags that point out how stupid this entire series is - but really this movie is the glue gloves and a real drag otherwise. "May there be peace on Earth."

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Villain's great, actors are great, cinematography is great...but maybe I feel that way because of what I'm going to say later? I just can't shake this feeling that I already want to yell at myself in a hotel bathroom over this one. He rode a plane INTO THE SKY FROM THE OUTSIDE OF IT.

Mission: Impossible III

I think every M:I fan would love to rank this movie higher (than the two movies I just ranked it higher than) given the extremely succulent performance from PSH...but there's plenty of other movie here, and a lot of it is trying to justify M:I2 in a way that just feels like cheese left out on the counter. Half the fun of cheese is the risk it'll wreck you, the other half being "Oh no, it's fine. I always spill red wine on my white custom made shirt."

Mission: Impossible

Started it all, epic twists, devious stunts...but I still feel like I don't really get it whenever I watch this movie, and the De Palma of it all makes me feel like I'm supposed to be getting it. In some ways my favorite thing about this stupid fucking franchise is that it started from such humble - but not quite DVD-thieving street racers - levels of espionage and gotcha filmmaking.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

This movie is utterly stupid and I don't care at all! The dialogue is so on the nose, the character motivation so willfully pointless, the blocking and acting so deliciously aware of its occurring in a movie but also, strangely and at the most unexpected times weighty and personable...this could really just be a thread about how awesome Fallout is and I'd totally accept that. How did they film that helicopter scene? How did they make a scene where Ving Rhames, who's really just been a cameo in this series for nearly a decade, and Michelle Monaghan, who you've really got to care about M:I3's actual story and Jeremy Renner's character arc to remember was even a part of this series, dismantle one third of a nuclear explosion the emotional crux of this entire double trilogy?

Can Top Gun: Maverick even hope to be not great?

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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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