Cruise is on top form, the new team is excellent (Simon Pegg out in the field, Jeremy Renner making his M:I debut, Paula Patton’s only adventure)… The main (and sizeable) snag is that the villain, played by an underserved and therefore expressionless Michael Nyqvist, is immensely forgettable. It’s breathtaking stuff, with a welcome dollop of humour - usually linked to the ongoing gag that the technology the team are using usually ends up malfunctioning.

It was the live-action filmmaking debut of Pixar staple Brad Bird and he delivered the goods: the destruction of the Kremlin, sandstorm chases, and the film’s flagship sequence, which sees Cruise scale the side of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (the tallest skyscraper on the planet).

However, Ghost Protocol – the fourth instalment – is only so low in this ranking because the competition is so strong. But I have few scruples, especially because from here on in, all the M:I films are excellent. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)Ī controversial placement, as many fans would place this one higher. Unfortunately, it all ends up disjointed, dated, and unintentionally cheesy.įollicle watch: Tom Cruise’s hair is the longest it has ever been in the franchise, and most of the action sequences feel like they’ve been sponsored by a L’Oréal conditioner. But Ethan Hunt isn’t supposed to be a full blown action hero and this chapter lost sight of the spying aspect that makes the rest of the franchise so enjoyable. There are some promising elements along the way (the excellent Thandie Newton, Anthony Hopkins as the one-time head of the IMF, the largely nonsensical plot acting as a cheeky homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious) and it’s laudable how the franchise was looking to unapologetically distance itself from the old-school espionage origins of the first, in a bid for every instalment to have its director bring in a new sensibility and style to the project.

I tried instigating a drinking game every time I saw some unnecessary slow-mo or doves, and had to quit because my long-suffering liver was having none of it. The overabundance of slow-mo, Limp Bizkit on the soundtrack, kung-fu moves, the lunatic amount of shades, two-pistol shootouts – all of which were blatantly trying to emulate The Matrix … Everything about this one was misjudged and it’s the M:I entry that has aged the most, feeling very 2000-era Hollywood excess. A deliriously entertaining dud, but the clear black sheep of the series nonetheless. I’m not being controversial when it comes to putting John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II (stylised M:I-2) in last position, as it is the dud of the series.

Tom bird box death