Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) Paramount/Action RT: 123 minutes Rated PG-13 (language, violence, intense stylized action sequences, some sexual content, disturbing images) Director: John Woo Screenplay: Robert Towne Music: Hans Zimmer Cinematography: Jeffrey L. Kimball Release date: May 24, 2000 (US) Cast: Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames, Richard Roxburgh, William Mapother, John Polson, Brendan Gleeson, Rade Serbedzija, Dominic Purcell, Anthony Hopkins. Box Office: $215.4M (US)/$546.3M (World)
Rating: ** ½
Mission: Impossible 2 is the oddest sequel since Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). Like Tony Scott’s wild follow-up to Martin Brest’s smash hit action-comedy, it’s a horse of a completely different color. Instead of a mere rehash of the first movie, it changes things up with an uneasy marriage of source and style by Hong Kong action director John Woo (The Killer, Hard Boiled). Unfortunately, Woo’s distinctive style isn’t a good fit, not for a Mission: Impossible movie.
This time out, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has a well-deserved vacation cut short by the theft of a deadly virus called Chimera. It was smuggled out of a Sydney lab by its creator (Serbedzija, Snatch) who injects himself with it in order to get past airport security. He thinks he’s handing it and the antidote Bellerophon to Hunt, but it’s really another IMF agent, Sean Ambrose (Scott, Ever After), in disguise. He’s a very bad guy with very bad plans. Unfortunately, he crashes the plane he was on with the scientist, destroying the virus sample and leaving him with only the antidote.
Hunt’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is to infiltrate Ambrose’s inner circle and recover the stolen MacGuffin. To do that, he’ll need to convince professional thief Nyah (Newton, Beloved) to join his team. Why her? She’s Ambrose’s ex-girlfriend; it should be no problem for her to get back in his good graces. Hunt needs her to find out what his latest nemesis is up to and pass it along to him so he can stop him and save the world from whatever he has in mind.
The other members of Hunt’s team are computer hacker Luther (Rhames, Pulp Fiction) and pilot Billy Baird (Polson, The Sum of Us). Together, they must prevent Ambrose from obtaining the last samples of Chimera from the pharmaceutical company’s HQ in Sydney, Australia. This means another elaborate break-in. It’s almost like something out of a James Bond movie except the main villain isn’t all that interesting and his final objective comes as no surprise, the predictability factor is pretty high in this less than satisfying entry.
The main problem with Mission: Impossible 2 is the difference in styles. One usually expects a briskly paced and complex plot from one of these movies. Instead, the viewer gets a thin storyline punctuated by stylized action sequences. That’s one thing this movie has a lot of, style. It’s oozing from every pore. Woo’s signature slo-mo fights, the graceful ballet-like moves of the combatants and scenes of birds flying and curtains floating in the wind; they’re all on display in this attractive but empty vehicle.
When we first encounter Hunt, he’s free-climbing on the face of a steep cliff. It’s a well-done sequence brimming with tension, especially if you’re afraid of heights like me. It reminds the viewer of Hunt’s daredevil tendencies. The climactic motorcycle chase is nicely choreographed. There’s also a well-orchestrated sequence at a horse racing track where Nya attempts to deliver crucial information to the IMF team while Ambrose’s main henchman (Roxburgh, Moulin Rouge) tries to keep track of her.
Unfortunately, the rest of Mission: Impossible 2 is so inconsequential in terms of plot and character development that watching it becomes a test of endurance and patience. It’s all surface and style with very little in the way of substance. It makes me wonder just how it was the summer’s top money maker. Just like Beverly Hills Cop II, the discrepancy in style is really off-putting; it’s difficult to know how to respond to the movie on first viewing. I did something I ordinarily don’t do anymore. I went and saw it a second time at the theater. I really wanted to try and reconcile the two movies. I couldn’t.
I’m not saying Mission: Impossible 2 is an all-out bad movie. It’s simply one that defies any reasonable explanation. What the hell was the studio thinking? Even a script by Robert Towne (Chinatown) doesn’t help all that much. It’s really a waste of the Oscar-winning screenwriter’s talent. I generally like Woo as a filmmaker. His previous American films- Hard Target, Broken Arrow and Face/Off- are all great. He’s all wrong for Mission: Impossible 2.
Cruise’s performance is about what you’d expect. He postures and smiles a lot. One of the villains even points out that he grins like an idiot every 15 minutes or so. Once again, there’s zero character development, but since this particular series isn’t character driven, it doesn’t really make a difference. Thandie Newton does pretty well as Ethan’s love interest, a role that parallels Ingrid Bergman’s in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 spy noir Notorious (1946). Scott makes a very bland villain. He surrounds himself with henchmen who aren’t that much more interesting.
Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs) appears unbilled as the new IMF director. It’s not much more than a glorified cameo appearance, but he still manages a decent performance. He’s one of those actors whose mere presence lends a note of class to nearly every movie in which he appears. He managed to elevate the junky sci-fi B-movie Freejack (1992) to a higher level than it deserved.
The cinematography is quite good. Woo choreographs and films action scenes like nobody else. I didn’t like the speed metal version of the Mission: Impossible theme by Limp Bizkit. It doesn’t work at all. Give me the original by Lalo Schifrin any day.
I honestly can’t decide whether I like Mission: Impossible 2 or not. It has its strong points but they’re often overshadowed by the movie’s weaker aspects. It has the flimsiest of plots and drags it out to just over two hours. The result is a good-looking but slow-moving action film. I’d have to say it falls into that gray area occupied by near-misses and not-quite-masterpieces. It could have been worse than it is, but it certainly could have been much better. Oh well, at least it’s an attractive looking production, nice to look at but completely hollow on the inside.
