My favorite action directors are still James Cameron and Martin Campbell. In my opinion those two have mastered crazy intense action without sacrificing great story and characters… But that’s my opinion.

I actually agree, he isn’t a very versatile film maker, and I certainly don’t agree that he’s “the best action director” because… well he’s not. But I would like to say, Red Cliff was actually pretty good film and didn’t really fit the whole John Woo style much at all, it was somewhat refreshing.

But like you, I wasn’t a huge fan of the “super cool protagonist” thing. In Mission Impossible 2, Hunt could pretty much do no wrong, in MI3, he was more clumsy and overall, more human. I’m not the biggest fan of Woo (I don’t even idolise Face/Off like some do, it’s a good movie, but I can think of a dozen better actioners alone), but my point above was simply that, whether he is a good director or not wasn’t what we were talking about, we were simply saying MI2 was pretty much the worst Mission Impossible of them all.

I am knocking John Woo. He might have “invented” a new style, but then he does the same old stuff over and over and over and over. I understand the whole concept of a “signature style” but his relies heavily on gimmicks. And while those gimmicks were cool back when they were new, once they’re no longer new, they are simply gimmicks. A good director is one who is dynamic and who is a good story teller. He seems to only have one trick up his sleeve to where when you see him attached, you can almost guess how the movie will go.

Frankly, I can’t stand his whole “ultra cool” protagonist thing, it’s annoying.

I don’t think anyone here was knocking John Woo’s abilities with action films, he’s made some good ones and some bad ones. But even if studio intervention stopped Mission impossible 2 from being as great as it could have been in his hands, that doesn’t stop it from being the worst of the three (in many peoples eyes).

DUE TO STUDIO CONSTRAINTS……..

WATCH “KILLER” “HARDBOILED”"BULLET IN HEAD” ” A BETTER TOMORROW”…TO KNOW WHY HE IS THE BEST EVER ACTION DIRECTORS AND WHY HOLLYWOOD CAN’T MATCH UP TO HIS STANDARDS!!

tom cruise is standing right next to him right.. thats not an illusion ??

he be a tiny man

The third one is good and you should see it.

@ DrSamBeckett,

I think you mean the second movie was far removed from the first – entirely different style of movie and action. The third one fit nicely with the first, even with explaining the masking process.

MI3 has a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, most critics seemed to like it.

I think one of the main reasons people may not have liked it was because it had a much more personal story and the whole “save the world, complete the mission” thing wasn’t the main storyline. Personally I prefer that, but when compared to the first two, where it was all “the mission is the most important thing”, it was different and possibly people didn’t like that.

I’m with 790 though, Tom Cruiser just doesn’t do it for me. He’s NOT an action star. (Even though Minority Report rocked)

MI2 was freakin atrocious. All of the typical retarded John Woo BS was there;

Protagonist has long straight hair: check
Protagonist wears sunglasses a lot or all the time: check
Protagonist wears long trench coats: check
Guns never run out of ammo: check
Dual wielding guns: check
WAY overuse of slow motion: check
White doves flying (in slow motion): check
Motorcycles: check
Ridiculously fake fight scenes: check

Please, I stay away from anything that moron John Woo does for a reason. MI3 was much better than the first two in my opinion. Hope they get a good director on board…

I bet if you edited all of the retarded slow motion in MI2 to play at normal speed the movie will be like 40 minutes long, LMAO!!

Remember how good “Alias” was? J.J. is going into a genre he knows well, which is why Tom Cruise asked him to be involved in “Mission Impossible: 3.” A good spy movie is more about the characters than the explosions.

“Alias” episodes may have ended on cliffhanger action scenes, but they were quickly resloved within the first ten minutes, or sooner, of the next episode. It is character development that drives a story.

That is what makes “Mission Impossible: 3″ a better movie than “Mission Impossible: 2.” The character development.

MI2 was a completely mindless action film that, yeah, had a couple good stunts, but also had some really ridiculous take-you-right-out-of-the-movie kind of stunts and laughably bad acting.

And the fact that the MacGuffin was never revealed is no reason to hate the movie. Like Joshi says, WHAT the thing is wasn’t important. The movie was about the characters, that’s what made it so good. The fact that Abrams isn’t directing is really disappointing, because he had a huge hand in making the film so successful.

You’re not the only one to hate the fact that the Macguffin was never revealed, but that tends to be the thing that splits people. To me, I thought it was perfect that we not know, the movie wasn’t about that, it was about the characters. Hunt never cared about what the thing was, only that he needed to get it to save his wife. Much like what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, we never needed to know. But again, that thing has split a lot of people across the board.