Every week in September gets you a new Mission: Impossible listicle. Why? Why not.
Here are the four total articles we did on Mission: Impossible:
Ranking the films overall
Ranking the villains
Ranking the Tom Cruise stunts
Ranking the recurring ensemble members
Rule Clarification: Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning I am counting as a two-parter – to qualify for this list, those two films could not be your only two films.
LAST: Jeremy Renner – William Brandt
The NERVE of the Hollywood machine to think they could replace Tom fucking Cruise with Jeremy Renner! The NERVE of the Hollywood machine to think that they could turn Jeremy Renner into a persona based star when his “persona” is just a cardboard box. This was a dark time in Hollywood. I know things are even worse now, but at least we have gotten over Jeremy Renner Syndrome.
11. Rolf Saxon – William Donloe
This fucker coming back for the final film and be an actual part of the action after disappearing after the first film was a real good bit. I do not have much more to say on the matter beyond that I still think Jeremy Renner was a worse recurring character than him.
10. Angela Bassett – Erika Sloane
Angela Bassett does not really get all that much to do in her two Mission: Impossible films, but her delivery of “That’s the job” is permanently tattooed to my brain, and I recall it all the time. So there is that. Good on her for getting paid.
9. Vanessa Kirby – Alanna Mitsopolis
The daughter of Max being a young version of Max is kind of hacky in a bad way to be honest. Vanessa Kirby does an admirable job, and her Hayley Atwell impression in Dead Reckoning was very charming to be sure. There is just no getting around the fact that her character’s mother was just far cooler.
8. Sean Harris – Solomon Lane
This boring-ass man gets points for lasting more than one of these films and that is pretty much it! At this point in the franchise they really needed like a Javier Bardem in Skyfall type villain if they were to be reoccurring. Instead, this dour man serves mostly as an idea to keep the plot moving. He’s also a classic case of a villain in one of these movies who is largely asking the right questions about what the hell is wrong with these evil intelligence companies but they then have to make irrational on some level so that we never stop rooting for the American superhero spies.
7. Michelle Monaghan – Julia Meade
Monaghan’s role here mostly feels like a symbol. The Ethan Hunt in MI 3 still was holding out hope there was a life for him in the real world. The events of that film put him on a path since then that has made him accept that he is the Batman of the world and there’s nothing left for him but impossible missions that he must make possible. The talented Monaghan does her best though in what little she is given to make her not nothing. As you can tell, this series is not wholly dependent on the success of the recurring characters.
6. Alec Baldwin – Alan Hunley
The best part about Alec Baldwin in these movies is that his small role is so radically different in his two appearances that he might as well be playing two different characters. In RN, he complaints the government wet blanket trying to shut down Ethan Hunt and in Fallout he is their cheerleader against the new government wet blanket!! He is basically just playing Jack Donaghy only if he was the head of the CIA. It’s pretty great.
5. Rebecca Ferguson – Ilsa Faust
Ferguson has a semi-thankless role, but she really does a fine job with it. It mostly feels like her journey in these later films is set up to mirror Ethan a bit, and that creates a bond between them that continuously draws to them each other instead of just entirely by circumstance. It’s a good character for the franchise to invest in, as they have struggled over the years to create interesting and dynamic female characters and just keep abandoning them.
4. Henry Czerny – Eugene Kittridge
Kittridge was so fantastic in what could have easily been a thankless/nothing role in the first Mission: Impossible that the announcement of his return thirty years later in the seventh film became a thing of a genuine interest and excitement. In many ways, Kittridge is a typical government bureaucrat, but Czerny always managed to make him just slightly more nuanced to that that added so much depth to his scenes.
3. Simon Pegg – Benji Dunn
While they come dangerous close to overdoing it with Pegg at several points (with Rogue Nation possibly coming the closest to putting too much emphasis on him), there is no doubt that his presence was a shot in the arm to the franchise and allowed them to embrace a slightly sillier tone for the films. He also provides an everyman supporting presence which helps to occasionally ground the film by making him so impressed by the ridiculousness of what we are watching.
2. Ving Rhames – Luther Stickell
Ving Rhames brings a great comforting and sense of familiarity to the franchise. It truly would not feel like a Mission Impossible movie if he was not there to help Tom Cruise save the world once again. There’s a steadiness to his presence that offers underappreciated value, and his broad arc mirrors the story of Ethan Hunt in a very complimentary way. After six films, he has put all of his faith into Ethan for better or worse and has accepted the idea that what they do is truly necessary.
FIRST: Tom Cruise – Ethan Hunt
Ethan Hunt is the defining role of one of the last great and true movie stars. The Tom Cruise persona is best defined by the Ethan Hunt character and so many of his other roles in the last twenty years have felt like an extension or close variation of Ethan Hunt. It’s a role that highlights everything compelling about Cruise.
The Reel World 