It appears that the Mission: Impossible series in its Tom Cruise era is now complete. All the film nerds have their rankings and favorite moments, and I go to bat for the way J.J. Abrams and his team put the franchise on the right path with the 3rd installment. It also upgraded many department heads who came in from the television series “Alias”, including Composer Michael Giacchino. This entry has the best opening (built entirely on the intense acting of Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman), the best villain, the best Tom Cruise run of All Time and the best mission. (While I love M:I4’s Burj Khalifa sequence, Kidnapping Owen Davian is beautifully paced, with a great balance of work for everyone to pull off the heist. The freeway set-piece is also a high point for the series, built on the execution of a series of exciting stunts and not just Tom Cruise doing something dangerous. It makes it hard to pick one day I would want to be on set. Probably not the freeway, which comes together in the Edit, but maybe any moment with Hoffman. Here you get to watch him be both a great actor and a great movie star.
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