Thankfully John Woo never directed another MI movie

Then again, people would have probably written it off as not being as suspenseful as the first film. Having Woo direct a wildly different film was so that people couldn't see it as a pale imitation.

Robert Galotti (a weapons specialist who worked on Woo's Hollywood films) said the following about MI2: "The studios and Cruise went overboard. They told John that they wanted “bigger than anything ever done” and he tried to give them that. The 2nd unit was longer than the first units of most movies. Cruise and his producers would watch scenes cut together then go have John shoot more stuff until they liked what they had. The budget was basically a blank check because the biggest star in the world was calling the shots. The “official” schedule will never reflect it, but this film shot more days than most movies in history. In my honest opinion, M:I-2 was a result of Hollywood people trying to make a H.K. film. Instead of just sitting back and letting John give them whatever, they tried to make their version of a H.K. picture."

MI1 is a piece of art compared to the rest of the films. Has that timeless quality and is so well directed.