The weakest of the Series

Rating: 4/10 (6 September 2009)

After the commercial success of Mission Impossible in 1996 it seemed that America had a spy film that could rival James Bond, and Hollywood being Hollywood, a sequel was inevitable. Here was a vehicle for Tom Cruise that had served him well. In Mission Impossible turned from a spy thriller to an completely out and out action extravaganza; but the film suffers for it.
The plot (what their is of it) is about a Russian scientist, Dr. Nekhorvich (Rade erbedija), a former agent of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), injects him with a new supervirus Chimera, hoping to give it to the Americans along with the antidote. But ends up being murdered by former IMF Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) and crushes a commercial plane into the Rocky Mountains. Sean Ambrose plans to sell the virus to the bidder, with pharmaceutical companies and terrorist jobs the main bidders. It up to IMF and Ethan Hunt to do this. Ethan is required recruit theft Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton) to fake a relationship with Sean so they can find him.
The plot and story is too simple, too stupid and basically can't compare to either the first or third film. The dialogue is terrible, and the script is full of plot-holes. Non-American nationals are also treated in a stereotypical way and they so many needless actions scenes, like the car chase in Spain. What is really surprising is the writer for the film was Robert Towne, who wrote Mission Impossible and has an impressive filmography, like Chinatown and Bonnie and Clyde. It didn't even seem like a sequel to the first film because it style, story and just so many changes made in this film. John Woo was hired to direct. He is a man who is a talented action director, but he is a man who needs to work in Asia because his style is more suited to Hong Kong cinema. He is also a man who needs strong material or else his films fall flat. Most of his Hollywood efforts have been weak. There are some strengths; the action and the material arts are very well done, and properly some of best in the series. It is not overly edited or any shaky cam that affected the enjoyment of the second Bourne films. They is also a delicious amount of violence in the film. But even with the action scenes some area where so over the top it was ridiculous and John Woo really enjoyed using sparks to simulate bullets and enjoyed repeated shots of the same scene. There are some element's of Woo direction I liked. I did enjoy his trick of using classical music over action scene, but I do dislike the over use of slow motion.
Now to the acting. Tom Cruise seemed to be on autopilot in this film. His heart wasn't in it like it was in M:I and M:I III. They was a lack of chemistry with Thandie Newton and she is weak compared to her high standards. Dougray Scott was a decent villain, but he isn't as good as actors like Jon Voight, Kristian Scott Thomas and Philip Seymore Hoffman who enjoyed roles in the series. Scott had also suffered career wises, he was due to play Wolverine in X-Men but the film shot overshot and lost the part of Hugh Jackman and was in the running to be the next James Bond. Now Scott hasn't been in anything good for a long time. Ving Rhames, normally a very good actor, was really just comic fodder in this film. I also thought Australian actor John Polson was not good in this film.
They is excellent music by Hans Zimmer, who is one of the best composers in the movie industry at the moment.
Finally, the whole series is schizophrenic, neither knowing whether to be thriller based or action based or even what it's setting is going to be. Mission Impossible was set as a black ops division of the CIA (the best setting), M:I II, Ethan Hunt pretty much a lone agent for some sort of international group, and M:I III which IMF was an independence organisation. Some coincidence wouldn't go a miss.
** out of *****