Overall Rating
  Awesome: 11.76%
Worth A Look: 22.15%
Average: 20.76%
Pretty Bad: 15.57%
Total Crap: 29.76%
13 reviews, 211 user ratings
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| Mission: Impossible 2 |
by Erik Childress
"Audiences Got Their Wish - Dumbed Down"
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Now that Mission Impossible is being turned into a franchise, it seemed poised to overtake the tired James Bond series as the spy films for the new millennium. The original had its share of action, gadgets and plot twists for all the recent Bond films combined. But, for reasons truly unbeknownst to myself, despite the worldwide success of the original film, audiences (and critics alike) always complain about it being too confusing and complex. Well, their cries apparently did not go on deaf ears, because the sequel feels like it’s been dumbed down for those who thought its predecessor was too complex.Where the original film could take pages to map out everything that happened, Mission: Impossible 2’s plotline could be written on the head of a pin. It goes something like this. The ultimate 24-hour bug, Chimera, has been created. Some bad guys looking only to sell it to the head of a drug company so he can release it and make billions on the cure, which has also been created, steal it. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), who is off climbing mountains to the opening theme of Rain Man, is tracked down to be given his mission to retrieve the virus. But first, he has to track down beautiful thief, Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton, who also appeared with Cruise, briefly, in Interview with the Vampire), proceeding to fall in love (and bed) with her after a few hours and getting her out of not one, but two scrapes. Little does he know that the only purpose she serves for this mission, is to infiltrate the villain’s compound in true Bond fashion. Why? Because she used to date him. This kind of low level cloak-and-dagger stuff dominates the first hour of MI2, where Hunt recruits old friend Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and a “crazy” Australian chopper pilot, John Polson (Billy Baird) who is reduced to being the Winston Zeddmore of the IMF team.
One of the big problems with MI2 is that, like U.S. Marshals’ final 20 minutes, it forgets the concept of the team. There’s only one scene when all four IMF members are working together (at the race track), before Cruise becomes John Matrix in Commando, which is doubly convenient because many of the action scenes will be compared to The Matrix, even if John Woo was using such techniques years before. Luther does a little (here and there), Nyah is all but forgotten during the final 40 minutes, and I won’t even mention the helicopter guy. All the while, Ethan Hunt becomes a one man hit squad, teasing his targets by walking past them in slow motion. Suspension of disbelief is in full gear here and that’s fine. Like Anthony Hopkins says “this isn’t mission difficult, it’s mission impossible”, so you could have someone jump off the Sears Tower, take out a dozen paratroopers on the way down and land perfectly on a motorcycle, and I would buy it – as long as it was done in a sense of sustained excitement. But when you see Tom Cruise doing one too many slow-motion spin kicks, one has to think “oh come on and just shoot him already.”
There’s no doubt that this is, indeed, John Woo’s version of Mission: Impossible. Which means a lot of action, right? Wrong. Other than your standard pre-title opening hook and a car chase (similar to one recently seen in Goldeneye) that is more like foreplay than edge-of-your-seat thrills, action is minimal in the first hour, taking a backseat to a love story that doesn’t belong anywhere in a Mission: Impossible film. During the best of the Bond movies, we never stopped to believe that James was ever in love with his “woman for the two hours.” Sure he didn’t want to see her die, but not because it would ruin his proposal plans. The first big Woo-style action sequence becomes a pale imitation of the Topkapi-inspired CIA break-in in the original, followed by some standard shoot-and-duck gunfire that has been done better in Woo’s non-“PG-13” rated films. So by the time the overhyped motorcycle chase comes, it’s too little too late because the film has brought us to the point where we’re not really excited – but merely watching cool stunts.
Dougray Scott (who had to drop out of playing Wolverine in X-Men due to delays and injuries here) does a fine job as the villain, Sean Ambrose, yet another former IMF member gone bad. The IMF seems to have more disgruntled workers than the post office. But his character doesn’t seem like much of a threat since (1) he is only out to steal and sell the virus to the highest bidder and (2) that bidder is going to distribute the cure as well, resulting in nothing but some serious inconvenience for the American public. And Anthony Hopkins has a fun cameo, playing “M” to Cruise’s Bond, and commands as much authority and menace in five minutes of screen time (even returning for a Sherlock Holmes-like wrap-up scene) as any of the villains.
For many years I’ve suggested John Woo as one of the candidates to breathe some new life into the Bond series. If this film is any proof, I may have spoke too soon. For despite all the delays in production, MI2 has the feel of a project rushed through development. It plays more like one of John Woo’s weak television projects than his action-packed efforts of “The Killer”, “Hard-Boiled” or “Face/Off.” MI2 isn’t even as good as Ronin, which is the best non-Bond, non-MI film to come along in years, not to even mention the best car chases since The French Connection and Bullitt. MI2 not only has minimal action, but minimal gadgets, which are essential to any spy film. How can a spy sneak around without his fancy gadgets? I doubt the world’s best spies just run around shooting and throwing grenades into plentiful chemical compounds. As it turns out, the biggest winner in this whole franchise may just be Brian DePalma who brought just the right style to this material, keeping the emphasis on teamwork rather than individual heroics. Suspense rather than guns. “Impossible” complication rather than “difficult” simplicity. Of course all this would be forgiven if MI2 was just a fun movie, which it is not, because most of its running time deals with one’s anticipation that something awesome is going to take place. And there’s nothing worse than a promise that isn’t delivered on.I was one of the lucky patrons to see the first public screening of MI2 here in Illinois with Tom Cruise and John Woo in attendance. Cruise introduced the film to everyone and pleaded with all of us (who signed a confidentiality agreement) not to reveal any of the film’s big plot twists to anyone, especially on the Internet. If they were anything close to the surprises in the first film, I would have been a happy man. I kept my promise, but the big plot surprises in this film are truly nothing more than numerous overused instances of the mask trick pulled in the original, making one realize that John Woo’s last film with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage is the way an action film with a simple plot should be made.
(Note: For those confused by the original film beyond comprehension - check out my "explanation review" at http://www.filmink-online.com/hbs.cgi?movie=580&reviewer=198)
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1643&reviewer=198
originally posted: 05/24/00 07:31:50
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USA
24-May-2000 (PG-13)
DVD: 11-Apr-2006
UK
N/A
Australia
01-Jun-2000 (M)
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