"This is not mission difficult Mr. Hunt, it's Mission: Impossible"

Rating: 4/10 (12 July 2000)

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME MAJOR SPOILERS. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THE FILM!
Antony Hopkins bookends this film with a brief cameo as Ethan's boss. I dunno about you, but I find it hard to watch the actor nowadays without being constantly reminded of an advert he did for a certain bank, where everything was 'big'. "There's a big bloke with a big bald head and he's eating a big bag of sweets making a big noise. Then there's five big girls having a big chat through the film and one's got a big smoker's cough and she's hacking her guts up in a big way. Then there's a big idiot who left his big mobile phone on and it's letting off a big ring". Yeah, the cinema can be an annoying place sometimes. But back to the film. There's a line of dialogue where Hopkins describes how by using a female thief on the mission they will reward her by deleting her criminal record. The record, he tells us, will be "expunged" (pauses, then adds for those who don't know expunged means) - "wiped out". The whole film is like this. Every time a vaguely clever plot point is revealed, the movie then immediately spells it out in bright big letters just for the members of the audience too thick to get it.
It's films like this that make you think you've either seen too many movies or that it's just blindly obvious what's going to happen next. This is no more apparent than with the wearily predictable series of face/voice doubles (c. Face/Off), the worst being Tom, running for his life, yet stopping to take off his mask. Hey, look audience! It was Tom all along! Even though the guy that looked like Tom is already revealed to be the henchman, here's Tom taking his mask off just in case you're dead from the neck up. Assuming, of course, you didn't know that the swap had taken place within the first five seconds anyway. See also: Oh My God, I cannot possibly guess what she's going to do with that hypodermic spray gun!!!
John Woo's direction is the big star of the show (and yes, Tom does get to do a "jumping sideways in slow motion while firing two guns simultaneously"), the colour of the movie a pleasant autumnal red/brown in contrast to DePalma's original clinical winter shades. In fact, he's the ideal director for this outing, as, while the first had pleasing complexity, this one is a by the book (if not - quite - by the numbers) actioner. The plot is non-existent, a mere 10 minutes' worth of events, to whit: bad-guys-steal-virus. Good-guys-steal-back-virus. The fact that this thin premise is expanded to two hours means everything else is just irrelevant padding and trimmings. Look at the first fifty minutes. Cruise steals a chip that tells him the secret of the deadly virus (Clue: It's deadly!) Yet we knew that before the opening credits, so why do we need to wait for Tom to find out? Like Connery finding out how they stole the nukes in "Thunderball", this is a time-filling game of catch-up. And surely his bosses would have known what the virus was capable of anyway? This is expounded by a fat Englishman in a hospital who only exists to give the most blatant display of clunky exposition I've been privileged to witness. Except he comes back to life or something, and I must admit I didn't get that bit, I was distracted - keep the noise down with those sweet wrappers!!!
Dougray Scott is good as the Scottish (what, not English?) villain who pronounces Ethan's surname like it's a form of East End rhyming slang. Thandie Newton's appearance in the first half of the film revolves around her breasts, while the second sees her redundant and looking pensive to what sounds like the lovechild of Clannad. Ving Rhames is Ving Rhames; the cool-sounding stereotypical black guy that does all the work while the Caucasian with the impossibly white teeth gets the glory. I half expected his credit to read "Uncle Tom", but I was left disappointed.
Things to look out for: a blatant steal from Darkman (and I'm not talking about the faces - think cigar cutter time) and an ending which - perhaps geekily - reminded me of the last McCoy Doctor Who story. Except that after the Doctor did a motorbike clash, he didn't end it by beating the crap out of the Master in a martial arts video game that went on and on and on for fifteen minutes. Maybe I'm just not enough of a bloke to appreciate it, but my testosterone is of a controllable level, so that I don't watch karate fights that bore and go "Wow! That was way way cool!" I just think - where's the plot?
If this were the first film in a franchise then I would be predicting its demise. As it's a continuation from a superior original then I guess it does a reasonable job of treading water and will ensure that Cruise will once again take on board a mission that is, if not impossible, then moderately entertaining.