A couple subsequent thoughts on Mission: Impossible III. One, I thought the use of technology in the movie was deftly handled. While the film might not have an 'ageless' quality like, say, The Bourne Supremacy, which could have possibly taken place in many eras of espionage, it instead took advantage of current or near technology within the narrative without doing it gratuitously - the technology served the story. I'll note the gradually increasing prevalance of 'future' technology in narrative that's similar to that old favorite shared setting of mine, Shadowrun (unrelatedly, glee!), such as the bomb-in-the-brain and the use of drones.

Secondly, I find it curious that they gave the Mission: Impossible movies a numbering, because they don't so much seem sequels to me as variations on a similar theme. Each has Ethan Hunt wanting out of the IMF, each has a girl, each involves a traitor in one capacity or another. So, as Wyatt pointed out to me, in a sense they could have been similar to the James Bond movies, each of which has little connection to the others, but follows a similar narrative structure each time.