Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Mission: Impossible 2


RATING: D+

At the time, it probably wasn't particularly surprising that Mission: Impossible got a sequel, considering its success. And usually a Tom Cruise action movie seemed to spell money, so why not? Actually, in some ways, I think that's the main reason this one managed to sneak past the studio executives. Because, despite some occasional mild appeal, this is one of the more incomprehensible and boring action/adventure films that I've ever seen. 

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, who is called into action during a ridiculously improbable rock-climbing sequence (his vacation) to recover some incredibly powerful virus called "Chimera," which kills its victims in about a day. The person responsible is a rogue IMF agent--Sean Ambrose--and said rogue agent is ultimately the reason why the IMF has Hunt call into action some professional thief named Nyah Hall. 

What results is a whole lot of literal nothing during the first 75 minutes. I mean, seriously, the camera work is probably the most interesting thing going on. Perhaps this is due to it following a film with a suspenseful story and a big plot twist, but the story is utterly uninteresting and there are no twists or anything to make it interesting. 

Of course, Mission: Impossible 2 does carry another big problem on its shoulders: the fact that it's a Mission: Impossible film. If it were a stand-alone film with no relation to the M:I franchise, this might be slightly more acceptable. Even Ethan Hunt, despite only having a little character development in the first film, hardly feels like Ethan Hunt. Luther Stickell is the only other returning character, and he ultimately is just a cardboard stand-in in this film. 

The film does pick up during the final 30-35 minutes or so as director John Woo--despite doing an overall terrible job with this film--does show what he is capable of in the action genre, during a fairly exciting road chase sequence and final fistfight. Unfortunately, by that point, it's mostly too late to change one's opinion about this film, and there's admittedly not much rhyme or reason to even those sequences, even if they do look cool. 

Mission: Impossible 2 was proof of just how bad a M:I film could be. We did later see again how good they could be, but unfortunately we still have to look back on this thing. Setting aside his action sequences and camera work, John Woo was probably one of the worst choices for director, and I'm not sure he gave a crap about the story. It's not like too many directors could've done much with the thin plotline, but somehow I think even Brian De Palma (director of the first film) could've done better with this one. 

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