the last half an hour is great

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2000)

Marketing is like magic. It really is. This film was marketed to look like it was action packed from beginning to end. Kudos to the marketing guys for doing so. They have to be considered similar to a David Copperfield. Copperfield can give you the illusion that something is there or something isn't. The trailers for this film do the same. We are led to believe that MI2 is going to be your typical summer action flick with explosions, car chases, mano-a-mano fight sequences and anything else that will increase your pulse.
They lied.
The trailer also promises you that John Woo is here to replace a stagnant Brian De Palma in the director's chair. It also screams to us that it is not going to be like the first one. It is going to be better.
HAH! What a load of crap!
First let's talk about John Woo. This man has a visual style that is matched by no one. His propensity to direct a good action film is not challenged in today's Hollywood. But this is also a man that is in love with the slow motion button on his camera. We usually see slow motion in everything from people eating a sandwich to reading Shakespeare to yawning as the sun passes overhead. It is overkill and although I can admit that he is a great artist with a broad stroke in action sequences I also have to say he does not know how to create tension in other areas of his work not involving action. It also has to be said that I think he is in love with Thandie Newton. Okay, sure she is beautiful. But I do not need a close up of her in every shot. After a while it gets incredibly cumbersome and it tries to dehort you from the inequities of the rest of the film by having her face take up the entire 60 foot screen. I can understand doing it at first, but come on, 20, 30 times in the film? It becomes cataclysmic and tiresome.
The first film was verbose and silly in some ways, but this one is void of any real action until the final thirty minutes and the director and his camera are in love with the female star. If Woo likees her that much why not just show her naked once, get it out of the way and then move on. How many shots, how much film was wasted trying to get her in the perfect light with just the right amount of hair hanging in her face and so on and so on? Too many.
But back to the crux of my complaint. There was very little action here and that is funny. The final 30 minutes of the film is some of the best action probably ever filmed. The motorcycle chase was breath taking, the fight scene was tense and exhilirating and the break in by Cruise into the fortress where Sean is negotiating his deal left me awestruck. That is where Woo excelled in the film. But what of the first 90 minutes?
MI2 has a great climax to the film but that is all it has going for it. I am actually giving it a 6 out of 10 because of it's style and energy at the end. But frankly I was bored with the rest of the movie. If as much energy was put into the entirety of the film as went into the end, and into showing how beautiful the female lead was, then this would have been a great film, as it stands, it is a mediocre one.
Prediction: MI3 in 2004