...yet another routine action thriller designed to showcase the star appeal of Tom Cruise, albeit this time stylishly supervised by Hong Kong action director John Woo.
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I hated the first "Mission: Impossible." I was a fan of the old TV series, and I resented the filmmakers for killing off the former team in the first few minutes and then making the sainted Mr. Phelps the villain! It appeared to me nothing more than a crass attempt to cash in on the old show's name and to make the new film a stock action vehicle for star Tom Cruise.
I'm over my frustration now and better able to accept "Mission: Impossible 2" for what it is--yet another routine action thriller designed to showcase the star appeal of Tom Cruise, albeit this time stylishly supervised by Hong Kong action director John Woo. The film has virtually no plot of any significance and relies almost entirely on the interaction of its three principal players, its "look" or feel, and, of course, its action.
The story line has something to do with a stolen killer virus and its antidote, with the good guys, the Impossible Missions Force, trying to get it from the bad guys who bungled the stealing of it in the first place. None of this is very clear, and by halfway through the movie, you don't care, in any case.
The first time we see IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise), he's doing reckless acrobatics off the side of a cliff about a million feet in the air, daredevil stunts done for no apparent reason except to show us what a fearless adventurer he is. Later, we learn that his rock-climbing expertise comes in handy, but the opening gambit is really just a chance, like everything else in the movie, to provide action even when it's not going anywhere. Then, Hunt's called into service to wrest the virus from a former IMF agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), who has turned to the dark side and gone to ransoming a biotech company trying to get its product back. Hunt rounds up a team of agents that includes computer-expert Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and helicopter pilot Billy Baird (John Polson).
More important, he recruits an unwilling thief named Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton). The problem here is that not only does Nyah not want any part of the proceedings, she was once the villain Ambrose's lover, something Hunt only finds out later when his boss, played by Anthony Hopkins, tells him it's the main reason they needed Nyah in the first place. By this time, you see, Hunt has fallen in love with Nyah, which complicates matters. So, we've got a three-way match going, present lovers, former lovers, nobody trusting anybody.
Ms. Newton is beautiful and daring and smart, and I can't think of a better combination for an action-movie heroine. She even speaks beautifully. Cruise is equally beautiful and daring and smart, but a main protagonist's personality should go further than that and light up the screen. Cruise doesn't. We learn nothing more about him than that he's half-crazy, chasing after Nyah in a sports car when he first meets her, following her in a foolhardy pursuit around winding mountain roads, he in a Porsche Boxer, she in an Audi TT, as they sideswipe one another, destroy both cars, and endanger the lives of everyone in their path. Finally, she winds up dangling over a precipice, and he comes to her rescue; he looks into her eyes, and they decide that they're in love. I guess they see in one another kindred spirits--they're both heedless loonies. That's about the level of sophistication the movie assumes.
The more interesting character is Ambrose. Dougray Scott, a versatile actor whom you may remember as the handsome prince in "Ever After," has a far more commanding screen presence than Cruise. Unfortunately, he's not the star, even though I found myself rooting for him.
The film's look is probably as important as its characters. It's glossy, slick, and high-tech in every department. The interior shots are filled with cool, smooth metal and glass; the exteriors are grand and epic, with sweeping desert vistas and stirring seascapes.
Robert Towne, who wrote "Chinatown," "Shampoo," "The Firm," and the first "Mission: Impossible," was brought in to do the script. He says in one of the disc's documentaries that he came aboard after the action sequences had already been decided upon. His job was to write a story around the action. It seems a little like putting the cart before the horse, and the result looks it. The movie is really just a series of set action pieces meant to attract our attention and showcase the star qualities of Tom Cruise, whose continuous posing and posturing becomes annoying. But, he's got that right; he's the producer. Not even so accomplished a director as John Woo ("Broken Arrow," "Face/Off") can keep the action moving along without a tedious sameness setting in, though. Maybe I'm just inured to action movies, but this one had me bored about thirty minutes in.
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[release]5625[/release]