Even after MI:Fallout is out , Brian De Palma's 1st MI storyline still my favourite ... cloak & dagger movies are supposed to complicated, to keep us guessing who's the mole ... too bad they decided to dumb down the following MI:2 story and focused on action (although I still like John Woo's balletic slow-mo action scenes). Not to say MI:1 isn't devoid of actions ... I remember when watching in cinema, when Ethan Hunt said will steal the list from CIA HQ ... then the theme song follows, leading to the suspenseful dangling scene ...

(Also remembered watching MI:1 on 3rd August 1996, becoz that's the day KL experienced blackout for almost the whole night ... we were almost finished watching the movie at BB President cinema ... reaching the TGV & helicopter scene when puff ... no power. The cinema management admirably issued replacement tickets for all, for any shows other days. Then we all began our own relatively mission impossible, rushing to go back, before darkness fell, dangling by crowded mini-bus door ... it was chaos. )

Yes! Somehow MI:3 is the least memorable, although the late Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is the villain to be feared, more so than other MI or any other movies. Won't hesitate and waste time on monologues when killing the protagonist. Maybe it's weakest coz audience not ready to see the personal family side of Ethan Hunt? Or no real unique action sequence.

Brian De Palma's MI:1 got CIA hacking, and train+helicopter scenes.
John Woo's MI:2 got the car dancing, motorbike chase + flying and beach martial arts, plus did the villain just killed Ethan Hunt?
JJ Abrams' MI:3 got ... err ... bridge bombing, and self-electrocution.
Brad Bird's MI:4 got all the things that audience took for granted will go smoothly, but didn't (which led comedic effects); plus the Burj Khalifa climbing.
Christopher McQuarrie's MI:5 started off with a great stunt, then the opera house sequence, and improved motorbikes chase ... but the underwater scene kinda meh.

Christopher McQuarrie's MI:6 is nice coz not only it balanced the action (more stunts) and spy storyline, but it also tried to tie all the other 5 MI movies together ... Max from MI:1, the downed plane from MI:2, the wife from MI:3, MI:4 (err...can't remember), and the Syndicate from MI:5.

Great trivias on the 2 MI movies pre-2000s

Just to add something ... in the lyrics of Limp Bizkit's theme song for MI:2, "Now I Know Why You Wanna Hate Me", got mentioned
Now all the critics wanna hit it
To shit-can how we did it
Just because they don’t get it

kinda pointing at the critics of MI:1 'complicated' storyline

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She's in the TV series Designated Survivor ... not the main characters, but significant.
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