10 Movie Sequels WAY Crazier Than The Original

Brian De Palma's original Mission: Impossible wasn't exactly a sober and restrained spy romp, culminating as it did with the bad guy flying a helicopter into the Channel Tunnel.

But Paramount evidently wanted to crank things up to 11 for the sequel, and who better for the gig than legendary action auteur John Woo, who was fresh off the deliriously entertaining Face/Off?

Mission: Impossible 2 is ultimately a monument to shiny, stupid excess. The virus plot scarcely makes a lick of sense, but it's propped up by an abundance of loony action, with Woo being allowed to fully let his freak flag fly.

It's a film that begins with Hunt climbing a rock face - which Cruise did for real - and only gets crazier from there, culminating in Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and villain Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) playing chicken with motorcycles and diving into each other's arms as they fly off a ledge. Yup.

While most will agree it's the weakest of the Mission: Impossible films, it does have its fair share of defenders, who roundly praise Woo's maximalist filmmaking chops and the sheer heightened surrealism of it all.

Yet Paramount evidently felt that Woo flew too close to the sun on this one, and when they finally got around to producing Mission: Impossible III in 2006, J.J. Abrams delivered a considered more hemmed-in affair.