This Movie Has Self Destructed

Rating: Null/10 (30 May 2000)

I was waiting for months to see this movie. I thought the combination of Woo, Cruise and Thandie Newton, would make this movie bigger and better than the first and a great movie. Well, the movie is a better than the 1st Mission Impossible but that isn't saying too much. Woo and Cruise ruin an opportunity (and big budget) to make a great action/spy film. Instead, Woo goes for a few chase scenes and one really interesting gun fight.
Where to begin with this - I think I knew we were in trouble with the opening scene. Not to give anything away, but let's just say it is an airborne scene I have seen 1 million times in a spy/action thriller. No new twists no new turns... very surprising. Then you cut to the Cruise cliffhanging mountain scene which you see ad nauseum in the previews. It is a nice opening montage, but you are left saying, "what was the point to that?"
We then are introduced to Thandie Newton who is SUPER HOT. But whoever wrote this thing and Woo, do nothing with this character at all. She is introduced as a super thief, but she never puts these talents to use. It is nice to see Cruise has a love interest, but it is the year 2000 and the woman should be more than window dressing. She should have been more involved in the mission... unfortunately she is just a James Bond like woman. Now this wouldn't be bad but she is hardly in the last part of the movie, and she is not sexy or anything so what was her point.
My next problem with this movie is the idea of Mission Impossible AND Ving Rames. For some reason except for the 1st montage of the 1st MI and a few minutes of the second MI, Mission Impossible has failed miserably to live up to the formula that made the TV show so excellent. Mission Impossible should be about a team of spies who work together to accomplish a mission. There should be deception intrigue... These 2 movies have just been about Tom Cruise and no teamwork. Which leads to Ving. Ving is awesome yet he is not truly allowed to take part in any of the missions. What a waste of talent!! Ving Rhames has to be given more screen time.

Next up - the villain. I'm not giving anything away by saying that the villain in this is a rogue IMF agent. But you never get a sense of how bad he is or why he has turned evil (unless I slept through this part). Since the writers have decided to dumb down the Mission Impossible franchise, the bad guy becomes even more important and the audience must really hate him. But I never felt that hatred for him nor did I think he was ruthless or even funny. He was just kinda there.
Gadgets- Hey this is Mission Impossible, there should be some cool gadgets, but unfortunately no one in the prop department could think of anything hi tech or cool. What a waste. No special weapon or gun or vehicle. Just those dumb rubber masks that are used to tie up loose plot twists.
1 Gun Battle - There is only 1 real gun battle in this movie. Was this done to pacify the gun control lobby. Woo thrives on action and gun play yet there was far too little in this picture... it almost seemed like a Batman comic book.
So there are my thoughts. It is an okay diversion but then you realize there have been far better spy/action films (give me any of the last James Bond picts) and that Woo did so much better with Face/Off. Then you hear that the movie made close to $100 million already so it doesn't really matter. But hopefully Mission Impossible 3 will finally bring the franchise a good plot to go along with the Woo-like effects and gimmicks. This movie made me want to go see Shanghai Noon which I hear doesn't disappoint the true action fan.