A let down

Rating: 6/10 (31 May 2000)

Who would have ever thought that pairing up Tom Cruise with John Woo would have ended up in a let down? Mr. Cruise has proven time and again (see RAIN MAN, MAGNOLIA, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY) that if given the right material to work with, he is one of the best actors working today. Mr. Woo has proven time and again that he is a master of the action film (see HARD BOILED and THE KILLERS). So what happened here? My guess is that the script by Robert Towne is simply not good, and so even if one brings in John Woo there is only so much he can do. To be sure, there are some very impressive sequences in this film, but you just don't care. You don't care about Thandie Newton's character, and you certainly don't care about Ethan Hunt.