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Love_Spoon [ 7.5 ]
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Mission: Impossible 2 has been criticized by some for lacking the story of Mission: Impossible. While I agree, I don't feel that one can hold that against the film. De Palma is known for more involved character studies (The Untouchables, Scarface), while John Woo is known for more action-oriented movies (The Replacement Killers, Face Off). While I personally liked the first one better and thought it was a better film, I didn't feel I could complain about the sequel based on its differences. It was still fun to watch.
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T.J. [ 8.5 ]
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O.K its time to do this.M:I 2 I think was a good movie overall but I'll Have to make some lists
Good: The Motorcycle and Cliff scenes.(unrealistic but cool)
That one scene where there was all that smoke and Tom Cruise walks out and that Dove flies out.That was one kick-@$$ scene.
Thandie Newtons butt. Oops did i write that?
The COOL Soundtrack.
The Fight scenes.(I kept thinking,this is Tom Cruise!)
Bad: Dougray Scott
The Plot(Can't they just focus on less than seven things?)
Too many of those damn Masks(ooboy hes in trouble now.Oh Wait thats just a face mask.)
That ending Scene where Tom has just beaten the
livin snot out of Dougray when Mr Scott suddenly has a gun leveled at Mr Cruise's back when Tom wheels around and suddenly kicks up a Gun(Yeah,Right)and shoots him about 7 times. So all in All it was a good movie but it had it's bad points. I gave it a 8.5 out of a possible 10 stars.
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chapter11 [ 7.5 ]
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"Mission: Impossible 2" works well as pure entertainment. Screw the implausibilites, the ridiculously ill logic of the story, the paper-thin characterizations; in director John Woo's able hands, "Mission: Impossible 2" is an engaging, stylish action film that easily trumps its boring, convoluted predecessor. Besides, a supporting cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Ving Rhames, and Thandie Newton can't be all that bad.
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brandon [ 7.5 ]
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there's this one classic john woo moment in the film, let me try and set it up. so first, this is all in slow motion, ok? then, after a door explodes, and smoke and fire frame the doorway a dove flies into the room, each flap taking full advantage of the thx theater. then tom cruise strides past the door, glaring at the occupants within.
and that's when it hit me. if only that was chow yun fat, that would've been one really fucking cool scene.
i also realized, that for all the films he's been in, tom cruise has never been an action hero. and that's exactly what his ethan hunt character is asked to be in this film. so with each cartwheel, and flip, and spinning kick, instead of thinking "wow!", i was more or less thinking "but, that's tom cruise!" ..
the action sequences are standard john woo .. in that there's more than enough style to go around, and it's about what i'd have expected from him .. so, all in all, the action kicks ass. the storyline was a bit too basic, ultimately evil bad guy trying to destroy the world .. more of a james bond feel than anything else.
in general, people seem to be divided over the tom cruise/thandie newton romance. some think it was corny and had no businesss being there, other's thought it was the best part of the movie .. i was somewhere in between. thandie newton does a fine job, but i once again ran into a road block with tom. he's too big of a star i guess .. i could handle his romance with nicole in "eyes wide shut" just fine (for obvious reasons), but had problems with him here ..
all in all, this is a good film, but that can't stop me from thinking of what it could have been ..
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babyduck [ 7.0 ]
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You'd think that the trioing (is that a word?) of John Woo, Tom Cruise, Hans Zimmer (music) would produce a beyond kick ass film. Unfortunately that didn't seem to have happened in this care.
Good things:
The action was pretty kick ass - with John Woo you'd expect that.
I also felt that there was some very hot chemistry between Thandie Newton and Tom Cruise. Personally I didn't feel that Thandie Newton was all that in the short glimpses you see of her during the preview, but on screen she just absolutely smolders. In fact, she's probably the best reason to see the film.
Bad things:
Plot was WAY too predictable. While the first Mission Impossible movie was just too convuluted, this plot was too dumbed down. If you suspect that there's going to be a plot twist at any given time of the movie it's going to happen. And you'll see it coming 30 seconds in advance.
Dialogue left something to be desired. The characters are somewhat two dimensional - especially the villains.
Runtime was also a bit long - they could have cut a few scenes to make the movie go a bit faster.
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MZA [ 5.5 ]
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this was pretty good. A gun in each hand, Woo-style. And Thandie Newton is princess-like, a star, but in my humble opinion looks better w/ some baby-fat on her. Builds to anti-climax, is virtually humour-free, and th ending fight scene goes on much too long. Th script hardly matters, which is a positive thing, as it straight-up sucked. Multiple shootouts, car chases, explosions, acrobatics, slugfests. Also, much typing into laptops. Tomorrow, all details will have left my memory.
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DokBrowne [ 7.0 ]
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Those rah-rah blockbuster trailers should have been an indication, but alas I expected too much of this film's intellect. It's pure summer (normally an insurance of junkie entertainment, but not when you anticipate a higher level of it), so insistently standard and unoriginal that, despite painstaking efforts, I could not help but be reminded of the bland, un-chic James Bond series. Whereas part 1 had layers of cerebral fun, playing with our visual perception and forcing us to concentrate on nearly every action and sentence while still providing lots of energy, this one takes out everything but energy, and just jams up that energy about 50,000 levels beyond what is needed, or wanted. This movie takes grinning (Tom Cruise grinning, no less) pride in being loud and hyperkinetic, neither a bad thing in my opinion, unless they coexist with far weaker situations. The setup is basically: action, identity swap, romantic interlude, exposition, exposition, exposition, exposition, identity swap, action, exposition, exposition, action, action, identity swap, action, exposition, and a last big action blowout complete with a two-way identity swap. Well, maybe not as many "action" parts, nor in the correct order. But close enough to make my point. Too much throwaway storyboarding, too illogical and precisely clichéd action, way too many face masks (it's like that voice-changer in Scream 3, a device so unfairly convenient in its application that it stamps out the movie's suspense-building credibility; after a while it's just "Oh no, he could be in dang--nah, it's just a mask. Let's wait for the rest of the audience to get it, then for John Woo to reveal it several minutes after that." And John Woo, man...three years after I saw the absolute coolest action movie ever, he follows up with this, complete with so many thudding catchphrases and logical nonsense that has long been exposed in the irony of today's movies. Even Last Action Hero, a ubiquitously anathematized action movie that I – alone in the universe – greatly enjoyed, recognized the stupidity of being able to detonate a car with just a couple bullets. Yet Mission: Impossible 2 sends about a dozen vehicles into fiery clouds with a strange sense of naive conviction. And what's with Tom Cruise? The original Ethan was a thinker, occasionally overreactive but ultimately on top of the game with a solemn certainty. The new, rebuffed Ethan grins or glares, with alternating cockiness and anger. A case could be made that he did the same thing in part 1, but it's a lot different here, a lot more flashy and meaningless. He's the suave Bond whenever he's not kicking ass with a grimace. The only consolation: it's big Tom, commander of my respect. He's the man all the way.
Dougray Scott is a plain do-badder, suffering an unmemorable demise, and sorely afflicted with that existential time lapse that brings down all villains, wherein he seems to carry on in a time zone about 30 seconds behind the hero, so that everything he does can be superseded before he gets the chance to do it. He's pointing a gun at Tom's back, laughing that he has the upper hand without actually making his move, yet Tom, supposedly moving really fast, has enough reaction time to toss an important item to a nearby friend, perform a "True Lies"-ian kick-flipping-the-gun-from-the-ground-to-his-hand-in-one-motion stunt, turn all the way around, duck, and take out Dougray. What was Mr. Scott doing that whole time? Gazing admiringly at Tom's stylish moves like we the audience were? Contemplating the meaning of the universe? Questioning the merits of his decision to forsake Wolverine to instead play a nondescript money-seeking, semi-menacing bad guy in one of the only disappointing movies I've ever seen? Yeah, I'm a sucker, I rarely ever feel cheated by a movie I see in theaters; maybe that's because I don't see every movie in its initial release, only I ones I think look good (as any practical moviegoer would do, I suppose). But this was one I had lofty hopes for, then exited fuming pettily with my friends at its many flaws.
I'm getting boring, so I'll recap: no 2 people can play chicken on motorcycles then leap off them at the last second high into the air and have their bodies collide with magnum force, Iron Monkey-like, followed by a long drop from the side of a cliff, without at least, say, DYING INSTANTLY, much less surviving without any physical deterrence whatsoever. The action, for all its un-thought-through idiocy, is fun. Anthony Hopkins is always cool, no matter what. Ving Rhames, too, carries his own eternalized appeal, however futile and in all ways quiescent he is in here. Thandie Newton is a breakthrough hottie, enough for me to ignore her woefully cliched 360 character makeover from sassy and hard-to-get to lovesick damsel-in-distress (a shift that of course occurs the instant she melts in Tom's arms). People don't play cutesy demolition derby with very fine, very expensive sports cars, especially while driving around curves next to a cliff. The doves, a custom-Woo symbolism effect, are well-used, especially in the obvious yet interesting way one seems to follow Tom around. Long shots of contemplative faces – another Woo tradition – is not so beloved and substantial – a usually effective tool for establishing an individualistic pace, or at least in making characters more believable, here, amidst the nonstop activity, it has the effect of freezing time, like in Star Trek: Insurrection. We feel everything abruptly go into super slo-mo. Besides, this being a decidedly “mindless” affair, there is no valuable emotional significance to linger on the pensive face of any character. They all have their mission impossibles to take care of, and beyond some romantic entanglements and vague concerns about the fate of the world versus a deadly virus, that’s about all there is to their psychological profile. Some self-aware, irony-sponge of an edgy movie needs to made that will acknowledge & once-for-all destroy the convention that villains shoot blanks. Tom's cliffhanger scene was exhilarating, like an IMAX experience almost. The plot has less priority than the romance, which has never been the point of Mission: Impossible. If John Woo was more frequent a filmmaker, this would be more acceptable on his resume. But it takes him a while, and he's following in Face/Offs masterful footsteps, so it's a bit of a letdown. A lot of the Down Under scenery was sumptuous, and the final shot at the crowded park was pure beauty. It totally undermines the calculating hardrock snap-crackle-pop tone of the movie, but it sure is a lovely sight to behold. It's a shot I'd expect (and sappily fawn over) at the end of a romantic comedy, but I'll take it wherever I can get it. =^)
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raldacus [ 6.5 ]
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This is a movie about sex, and in many ways, is a porno without any nudity.
Courtship is hilariously sacrificed in the name of getting down to business. (It definitely doesn't take too long for Ethan Hunt's (Tom's) work to become 'more than personal'.) None of the women wear bras. The soundtrack is repetitive and funky. And Tom Cruise spends the whole film making love to the camera. Alas, in the end, the film falls considerably short of bringing the audience to climax.
The most intriguing scene is a dizzying high-speed car chase atop the mountains of Spain that is somehow Woo'd into a sexy automotive flamenco dance. (I wasn't sure if I was supposed to guffaw or drool.) Then, a la Croenenberg's "Crash", the drivers immediately follow-up a crap-your-pants car crash on a cliff with a steamy 'flamenco dance' under the covers. Ahh yeaa.
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Stitch [ 9.0 ]
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A much better actioner than the first Mission. It actually made sense and the bad guy was much more believable. In the first (SPOILER AHEAD), they turned Jim Phelps (IMF head honcho) into the bad guy. His character came from the TV show and was as trustworthy as they come, so to turn him into the bad guy was ridiculous. And that's assuming you could follow the convoluted plot. I had trouble and I usually am able to follow the most twisty plots (I have to say though that besides all that it was an entertaining time at the movies). Here (I bet you thought I was reviewing the wrong movie) the story moved along and the villan was a villan from the start and John Woo directed with his usual flair. Although sometimes it felt a little over the top, like it was directed by someone wanting to BE John Woo rather than the man himself. However it did have great fight/action scenes and a nice love story. And watching Tom Cruise doing his own stunts was fab if a bit unnerving. Dougray (pronounced doog-ray) Scott was a good, sexy villan with a great Scottish accent (his own).
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JD [ 0.0 ]
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Well, if this is what action movies have come down to in the year 2000, then the days of decent action movies are over. Take any attempt at a plot that might have some thought behind it and discard that. Then take Tom Cruise in an action hero role and pretend like he might have some moves when he does not. Then take John Woo who uses SLO-MO action and repeats the same thing over and over until you wonder how anybody isn't bothered by that. And then copy other movies like Face/Off and James Bond gadgetry and throw that into a movie and call it a summer blockbuster. ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.1 |
| No. Ratings | : 35 | |
| No. Reviews | : 22 | |
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