Goofs

Crew or equipment visible: Camera operator visible in far left corner of Ethan’s sunglasses at the funeral service.

Continuity: When Ethan is writing the calculations for the building jumps on the window, the math changes between shots.

Errors in geography: The location of Owen Davian’s release is said to take place on the Bay Bridge which is over the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. As the helicopter is leaving the scene with Davian, Ethan Hunt jumps into a convertible and continues along a bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the background. The Lincoln Memorial is about an hour away from the Bay Bridge. The bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the background is off Rte 395 going from Northern Virginia into DC.

Factual errors: There are no direct flight between Washington, D.C. and Helsinki, Finland.

Continuity: After Ethan shoots down the jet on the bridge, it is seen blowing up and the helicopter swings away. A few seconds later, the helicopter is back to its normal position as if it never occurred.

Continuity: As Owen Davian is being transported along the bridge, the fly over shot shows no cars passing next to the caravan, but then the camera cuts to a car behind the caravan and suddenly there are cars.

Crew or equipment visible: When Ethan’s team return from China and the camera pans around the airplane the entire crew can be seen in the red painted part of the plane.

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Ethan is fleeing the scene of the bridge attack in the Mercedes convertible, we see him steering with one hand and using his phone with the other, but the soundtrack indicates manual gear-changes are being performed.

Continuity: When they are being attacked and shot at on the bridge, Ethan’s back left jean pocket is ripped. After recovering from the almost fall off the bridge, his jeans are no longer ripped.

Continuity: In the final scenes as Ethan is running through the narrow streets of Shanghai, he is almost hit by a truck traveling at quite a speed. As he turns the corner from where the truck has just come, we can see that it is narrow and there are pedestrians in the middle of the road. Not the sort of road for trucks to be traveling at speed.

Continuity: Ethan is told to meet ‘at the crack of dawn’ the next morning for the mission, but when Ethan appears the next morning it is obvious the outdoor shadows are near mid-day.

Errors in geography: The railway wagons in the yard at the factory in Berlin have American-style couplings, not European ones.

Errors in geography: The truck that Luther is in in the factory in Berlin is an American truck as vehicles in Europe don’t have indicators (turn signals) switched on all the time.

Continuity: When Ethan is having the thing in his brain detonated, Julia Meade hides behind a wall to avoid gun fire. Her position on the wall changes to where her shoulder is over the wall and therefore able to get shot, back and forth throughout the whole sequence.

Errors in geography: In the final scenes as Ethan is just about to run through the streets of Shanghai, you can see a real map of Shanghai and the place where Ethan is. In the next scene, Ethan escapes through the rooftop and you can see a village, which in reality isn’t there, because at this point of the map there are traffic routes and tourist streets. Then he runs through an old China street with old fashioned prototype Chinese, which in reality is a modern city street with normal people.

Factual errors: In the final scenes when Owen Davian is killed, there is a shot of a taxi with the Chinese characters indicating it is a bus.

Continuity: In the chapter when Ethan parachutes from the building having recovered the rabbit’s foot, when he is picked up by the Land Rovers, the road condition alternates from dry to wet and back to dry again in the space of seconds.

Crew or equipment visible: When Ethan is escaping from IMF headquarters and climbing up the elevator shaft cable, you can see the back of his coat being lifted up from the cord that is lifting him.

Errors in geography: The GPS coordinates N57,50 E21,00 shown at 0:10:06 are in fact a location in Baltic Sea and not “near Berlin”

Continuity: When Davian is being kidnapped in the bathroom, as Hunt is coughing to kill time, the camera switches back between Hunt and the bodyguard, the tissue he is holding continually switches between his left and right hands.

Revealing mistakes: When Ethan is lying atop the Vatican wall, he places a photo in front of the camera for the benefit of the security crew. In the photo, the traffic in the left of the frame is not moving. This should be easily detected by security when the camera comes back on-line, since its integrity has already been compromised.

Factual errors: While the IMF caravan is on the Bay Bridge with Davian, all of the vehicles with Virginia tags are labeled incorrectly. Virginia license plates consist of three letters, a hyphen, and four numbers (LLL-NNNN) not three letters as shown.