John Woo's genius is destroyed by Tom Cruise's ego

Rating: 3/10 (12 October 2001)

Contrary to the first Mission Impossible movie, this time there is a plot that can actually be understood and the pacing is much better then in the first M:I
Unfortunately, this is where the good points stop. The story suffers severely from ridiculous plot-twists (all those scenes in which somebody removes one of those masks are totally unbelievable), the action scenes are sometimes flashy but they are usually so over-the-top that is becomes utterly nonsensical (I mean, is it possible to ride a motor bike at over 100 mph and then making a car explode by hitting it only once in the fuel tank, while aiming by only looking in the rear view mirror of the motor cycle ?). Another fine example is the scene where Tom Cruise jumps over a 100 metre cliff for no apparent reason, reaches the top of the mountain and is shot at by helicopter with a missile that contains his orders in the form of an exploding pair of sunglasses. Why ?
The movie is full of this kind of exaggerated action scenes, which are obviously only meant to show how 'cool' Tom Cruise is: he shoots like the Terminator, fights like Bruce Lee, drives like Michael Schumacher, gets women like James Bond etc. He is so invincible that it takes all the suspense out of the movie.
It's really a shame that a great director like John Woo has wasted his talents on showing off Mr. Cruises ego, because there are some points in the movie where Woo's genius actually showes up, but they are few and far between. Too bad