I thought MI3 was lousy. Though superior to MI2 which was an absolute turkey. Honestly, MI3 was rubbish for mine. Keri Russell?
In my opinion, the first one was probably the best. It established the ongoing tics of the franchise, had plenty of tension, had several excellent set pieces (the opening sequence, the room with the pressure-sensitive floor, the train sequence), had a reasonably twisty plot, and ended a fairly brokedown period for the action/heist genre at the time of its release—the action genre was dominated by overblown star vehicles in the mid 90s.
The slew of imitations that followed it is probably some indication.
