It could have been better...

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2000)

I'll spare you a set up the story and just get right to the review:
Mercifully, the movie has a very nice, quick pace so it's not as bad as it could have been. The first 20-30 minutes are just plain boring and there are a lot more boring parts to this movie. But besides, quick pacing it does have other shining points. Some of the cast delivers. Vanessa Redgrave is great as Max, the crime boss that wants the NOC list. Her first scene with Tom Cruise is very well done and humorous. It's a shame she wasn't in more of the movie. Tom Cruise is good as Ethan Hunt from when he meets Max to the end of the movie. For the first half hour, he was just awful. And that crew cut just looks awful on him. Very distracting. Ving Rhames adds another good performance into the pile, though he hasn't much to do, he does well with what he has. The rest of the cast is very mediocre.
The 2 only action sequences are thankfully fantastic. The first is in IMF HQ in Langley, VA where Hunt tries to obtain the NOC list is very suspenseful as he has to pass 3 security systems to obtain the NOC list. The other is when he must chase down the bad guy (I ain't sayin' who it is for those who haven't seen it) on top a high-speed train, while the bad guy tries to get on a helicopter. And the train is about to go in a tunnel! The mayhem was so exciting!!
While it had these good things, there are a lot of bad things to overshadow them. First of all, the overall mediocre acting and the fact that there are only TWO action scenes!! Just two!? No wonder this movie got so boring! They only come in the last 30-40 minutes of the movie! Which brings me to another point, this movie should not have been an hour and 50 minutes. They should have cut out 15-20 minutes of the boring dramatic scenes. The score by Danny Elfman is also incredibly bad. In the very few instances he used the famous M:I theme, it was good and added to the scenes. And Brian De Palma uses some weird camera angles to "enhance" the drama, but it's really just distracting, like Tom Cruise's haircut.
To sum up, it had some very good moments, but there were too many boring sequences and bad acting to make it good. It just winds up in the mediocre. It's too bad because this could have been a fantastic summer flick. Barely worth seeing. **Â½/****