Mission: Implausible

Rating: 2/10 (29 May 2000)

OK...Like everyone else, when I saw ads for this film I got excited. The first Mission film was really well done, with DePalma recreating the stealthy spy type feel of the series. There will not be a better nail-biter than the highwire segment in the first.
When I saw that John Woo was going to direct #2, I was psyched! I had visions of Faceoff dancing through my head, eager to see two hours of hard-core, non-stop action. Here's where you should take heed. The action scenes are few and far between and most of the stuff they do seems like deja vu from dozens of older films. The first Mission, cited as "too complicated", made the writers come up with a cliche and grade school simple storyline of an agent gone bad [how many times have we seen this?]whose only schtick is a Scottish accent, who plans on wiping out the world with a virus.
It took a good hour before any real action hit the screen, and most of it was like a rehash of Faceoff. Anthony Hopkins was HORRENDOUSLY under-used, and Ving Rhames, who is a terrific actor, gets stuck sitting in a van the whole film, mashing away on a keyboard.
The implausability factor is from Cruise though. In the first film, he was a clean-cut, by the book agent with a nice mix of daredevil and intelligence. In this one, he is a mix of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and some horrible Van Damme wanna-be. Part of what made this film ridiculous was Cruise suddenly bouncing around like a kung-fu master!? The one scene where I laughed out loud was the start of the bike chase. After dispatching a bunch of guys, he runs over to a bike and then STOPS AND PUTS ON HIS SUNGLASSES!?!? How STUPID is that!?
All in all, if you want to see this film, watch the trailer. All the action is shown there. If you really want to fork out $5 and sit through 2 hours of this drivel, just don't say I didn't warn you. This review will self destruct in 5 seconds....It's just a shame the movie won't! My rating? 3/10