diabolical MTV farce

Rating: 1/10 (9 September 2005)

SPOILERS Way back in the 1960s a wonderful television series was released called "Mission Impossible". With a legendary theme tune and some great stories, the series was followed by an equally superb film in 1996. Entertaining and well shot, it was only a matter of time before star Tom Cruise would find himself reprising the role of Ethan Hunt. It's a disastrous fact therefore that this sequel is an abomination. More like a badly shot MTV movie, it is badly acted, written and contains some of the worst film fight scenes of all time.
After Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) steals a manufactured disease, it is up to fellow secret agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) to retrieve it. Adding Ambrose's former love Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton) to the mix, and the film descends into a mediocre action packed love triangle.
From the opening scenes of Tom Cruise climbing up a cliff without protective ropes, you can tell that this film is going to be awful. When he begins to fall in love with Thandie Newton's dire Nyah, you're suspicions are confirmed.
Finally, let's progress to the ending and look at the absolutely diabolical final fight scene. It's never a good idea to analyse the ending of a film, but on this occasion, the terrible motorbike and hand to hand combat events at the end need to be talked about.
The bike scene is awful. Put simply it is a pointless, irrelevant battle which collapses in on itself. Following that, the combat scene between Cruise and Scott is a farce. Set to your typical MTV soundtrack and with "Mortal Kombat" style fighting (including the rudimentary slow motion death), the whole scene is a joke with absolute no merit.
It feels only fair to try to find a positive side to this film. In that respect the character of Hugh Stamp, played by Richard Roxburgh, is the rare highlight of this awful film. Funny and entertaining, the character is a surprising joy. It's a small positive in an otherwise major mistake.
With a feel of an MTV video, "Mission Impossible II" is an enormous mistake. Badly written, acted and shot, it is one of the worst films in living memory. Even the brief joy of Richard Roxburgh's Hugh can't save the film from failing badly. A dire movie worth avoiding at all costs.