Mission Impossible 2 Review by Tim Wick
I hate giving a film three beakers. If you took the time to look through my
past reviews (not that I'm suggesting you do), you would see that three
beakers is a really bad measure of how much I liked the movie. It is a kind
of catch-all for mediocrity. I've used it for reviews that were primarily
negative (The Cider House Rules, U-571) and for reviews that were primarily
positive (Pitch Black). So when someone looks only at the number of beakers
I give the film, they may be misled. I say that because Mission: Impossible
2 falls squarely into the three beaker limbo of which I speak.
I referred to this film as a bad movie that I enjoyed. That would place it
in the same category as Independence Day in my book. I know the film is
awful. I can spend hours telling you why it's awful. I wouldn't find it any
less fun. But because I know it's awful, I'm not going to try to mislead you
by ranking it four beakers.
The film did get off on the wrong foot for me. The first thing we see
(SPOILER ALERT) is our run-of-the-mill bad guy crashing a plane load of
people to get his hands on an anti-virus he figures will make him rich. As
in Die Hard 2, I find that excessive. I suppose it proves the bad guy is a
real tough nut and our hero better watch himself, but I find it a little
disturbing. I know you have to take a few innocent lives to accentuate how
much of a jerk he is, but a whole planeload seems a bit over the top to me.
I did manage to get over that initial jolt that had the potential to ruin the
film for me. For a John Woo film, it gets a surprisingly slow start after
that. I'm thinking that is because the primary villain in this film is the
screenplay. For all the great John Woo visuals, our intrepid heroes are
forced to deliver lines like:
"Would it make you feel better if I didn't want you to do it?"
"Yes!"
"Well Feel Better!"
The lines were delivered with such sincerity that I almost burst out
laughing. Who wrote this, I wondered. Well, checking IMDB, I saw four
different people credited with writing the screenplay. A-ha. That would
explain it. In film, too many cooks do most definitely spoil the broth.
When the characters aren't talking, the movie is a lot of fun. There are a
couple of nifty car chases, a good gun fight or two and a few decent
espionage sequences as well. Fact is that I can't really describe them
because they have those unique John Woo elements that make them better on the
screen that they could ever be in a review.
The acting is not particularly notable. Tom Cruise (whom I will defend as a
good actor) really doesn't have anything to sink his teeth into. His Ethan
Hunt is an American James Bond without a thirty year history. I don't know
what kind of liquor he prefers or what lengths he is willing to go to, only
that he'll do whatever his boss tells him to do. Cruise plays the character
fine, but he doesn't have that much to work with.
Thandie Newton plays Ethan's love interest (another obvious James Bond
rip-off) and again has little to work with. This role certainly does not
give her a good chance of being cast as anything more than a bimbo, so one
hopes people will forget about it soon enough.
Dougray Scott is our villain. He played the prince in Ever After, I film I
highly recommend. Here, the only thing I could keep thinking was that Scott
was supposed to play Wolverine in the X-Men film until this one ran over
schedule. he would have been awesome as Wolverine but this role, as with
Newton and Cruise, gives him little to work with.
Oh, Ving Rhames is in this one too. Same problem.
The only standout in the cast is Sir Anthony Hopkins who plays Tom Cruise's
superior, Swanbeck. His role could have easily been a throw-away cameo, but
because Hopkins is such a superior actor that he manages to deliver a line
like "To go to bed with a man and lie to him? She's a woman, how much
experience does she need?" without actually making it offensive. That is a
pretty neat trick given how offensive the line most certainly is.
Do I suggest you go see this movie while it's in the theatre? Most
definitely. It is the kind of film that will not translate to the small
screen well. Go in the afternoon when you don't have to pay full price.
Turn off your brain and enjoy the ride.
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