MI2?? (Mission Impossible 2 (DVD))

Member Name: roger_smith

Product:	Mission Impossible 2 (DVD)
Date:	03/10/00 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good past half way mrk

Disadvantages: Poor dialogue scenes

Call me cynical -- I laughed when I heard there was going to be a Mission: Impossible II after making a joke about it in my review for Eyes Wide Shut. But my hopes were lifted somewhat when I also heard John Woo was directing it. I thought maybe the ridiculous, convoluted elements of the first movie would be replaced by plenty of double-gun action, karate fights, explosions, showers of sparks, back-flip choreography and doves. Lots of doves.

Well, Woo has delivered, and while this is no Face/Off, it's as satisfying an action movie as one can ask for over the bottom-line Hollywood economics of Memorial Day weekend. This movie will make a sh@tload of money, but deservedly so. Everything about the film reeks of style and class, as is Woo's M.O., and he's got a top-form Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Anthony Hopkins and the beyond-beautiful Thandie Newton to back him up.

From the pre-credits opening, we realize we're in for a much simpler plot than the first M:I film. A nervous scientist is traveling by plane, accompanied by a deadly virus he invented and its antidote, not to mention Agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) of IMF. But, as the plane loses cabin pressure and the co-pilots and passengers conk out, the man sitting next to this scientist pulls his Cruise face off (pun intended, unfortunately), grabs the virus-loaded briefcase and bails out with his accomplices, leaving the plane to meld itself with a mountain range.

The real Ethan Hunt, we soon learn, is on vacation, and vacation for him entails plenty of high-risk mountain climbing. But he can't hide from his technology-whore employers, who show up in a helicopter and shoot an empty missile cannon at his feet. Inside is a pair of sunglasses that, once confirming his identity via retina scan, assign him a mission. He's to grab two partners and track down the virus -- but first, he has 48 hours to track down a sexy Spanish thief (Newton).

Woo establishes a long-held Jam
es Bond archetype subplot in no time. Hunt meets the girl with a few hours to spare, kills those hours by making love to her (not a bad way to spend that extra time) and proceeds with the mission. We soon learn from boss Hopkins that the thief was once romantically involved with the movie's super-villain (played by Dougray Scott), who also once worked for IMF. So it's one degree of separation all over the place, and Hopkins wants the thief to romance some information out of Scott. Cruise and his tender heart experience some emotional complications, but a mission is a mission.

There is at least one slow reel of film during all this exposition, which includes an adequate car chase and a couple of technology-centered suspense scenes. But Woo eventually makes up for it during a 20-minute break-in sequence with Cruise slipping into a pharmaceuticals lab from above. It's the first real John Woo scene of the movie, complete with most of what I mentioned in the first paragraph and plenty of casualties. And once Woo sets the action in motion, there's no turning back. Save one or two dialogue interludes, the rest of the movie is all bite, no bark.

Mission: Impossible II (or, as the marketers try to twist our arms to call it, M:I-2, far surpasses the original movie. I've never actually seen the TV series, but I know reel-to-reel cassette recorders were involved, so it's safe to say this sequel is way beyond its scope. Some of the dialogue is stilted or laughable, but the scant emotional involvement works. And Scott makes a not-half-bad villain who's actually rather stock-savvy, it turns out.

Chances are, you'll be going to a movie sometime over Memorial Day weekend. While I also recommend Shanghai Noon, Small-Time Crooks and Dinosaur (barely), M:I-2 blows all three out of the water.

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