Silliness trumps action. (warning: minor spoiler(s))

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2000)

I must confess it's been a little while since I've seen "Mission: Impossible," and I was prompted to write a brief review solely by my brief amazement at hearing of "Mission: Impossible 2".
I shouldn't have been amazed, of course. Mission: Impossible MADE MONEY. And to be honest, it wasn't that bad a movie. Some of my friends thought it was great.
Neither was it anything even remotely approaching a great movie. It had its moments, but the movie's climax (?) was, in my opinion, just downright gosh-darn-groan silly. Mission Impossible? Uh, yeah.
Tom ("Butt of Triple-Case-Hardened Steel") Cruise is OK as the star. I suppose the movie is somewhat true to the original TV series, in the sense that the plot twists and turns, there are surprises and betrayals, but I was frankly disappointed that the movie basically trashed the whole story line/ original characterization of the series.
One good thing is the Mission: Impossible complexity. You really need to watch it a few times to catch all the details of what's going down. And in fact, I did find it worth more than one watch, if only for that reason. Look for a good scene at CIA headquarters and, yes, the ending is intended to be exciting -- but to me it just drowned in the silliness, like my daughter's french fries in ketchup.
There are plenty of worse movies. I give it about a 5 or 6.