When sequels go wrong

Rating: 3/10 (14 March 2001)

I'm not a fan of MI:2 for so many reasons, but none more than because they messed with everything, changed it all. I don't champion the original MI, but it was slick, it entertained, it made sense from one point to another. This sequel is just an ungodly mess. It's as if someone said 'can we take everything that was wrong with the original and amplify it tenfold'. Even Tom Cruise (who I thought was a perfect fit in the original) feels out of place ... doing weirdly angled kicks and spinning off motorbikes.
John Woo can make good movies, I know this, I think you know this, but this is far from one of them. I strongly wonder if he was the right guy for this project. I ponder this because I didn't even find the action scenes that great and we're talking about John Woo here. Between the doves, action scenes that seem so far removed from reality, we also get a bunch of people switching faces. The amount of times they use this convention to further the silly string plot is truly absurd. All wrapped in a flick that feels like nothing a Mission Impossible movie should feel like. Of course, saying all that, won't stop us from seeing a Mission Impossible 3. I just sincerely hope they get back to the basics and get it right the next time, but the way Hollywood operates, I'm not optimistic.