I'm watching it tonight on Showtime HD. The special effects sound is fantastic, but the picture sure is dark. Even the outdoor-light scenes look dark. Maybe it is a filming style to make it look noir-ish. I even turned up the brightness on my display but it does not help enough. Also I hate how they move the camera around all the time (handheld) to create additional action. It just induces headaches. I don't know how sharp the movie is supposed to be, but it isn't sharp enough to look really great.

And then to start it at 7:55pm EST is crazy - couldn't they find 5 more minutes of commercials?

i didn't see the showtime version but the HD-DVD version was AWESOME

I recorded the Showtime version a couple of months ago from Directv's MPEG4 version of Showtime and the picture was outstanding. As the OP stated, the sound effects and overall sound quality was very good. I'm finding that some movies that have come out over the last year or so have very volume in the center channel. Not so with MI 3.

Though the picture quality was great, it suffered from a bad case of plot-lite.

Though the picture quality was great, it suffered from a bad case of plot-lite.
I agree. Even great PQ, first rate 5.1 sound, and the always terrific Philip Seymour Hoffman, weren’t enough to overcome the always mediocre Tom Cruise and a really, really dumb plot.