And i thought THE PATRIOT was bad !!! ...

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2000)

Warning ! This might contain a spoiler or two... Warning ! Stay away from this movie, it´s real bad !
I never thought a big action blockbuster, coming out of Hollywood, could be like this. This movie is BORING ! It was the worst action movie i ever saw. I wasn´t expecting much out of it, but i sure wasn´t expecting it to be BORING ! What´s wrong with this movie ?!
It´s totaly uninteresting. The plot was already done a million times, and it seemed more like a rejected draft script from a James Bond movie than actualy a finished work. And the latest 007, was also a boring empty shell, but not as much as MI-2 is. This is almost unbelievable ! It begun pretty bad, with the usual "classical" car duel, between the hero and the movie babe. Everything was in place as usual, including the hanging above the abyss, race outcome, seen a million times in all the 007. And the initial seduction scenes, oh well... The villains are nothing more than a collection of clichés from James Bond, only this time, without any charisma or interest whatsoever, ruing all the threat. The bad guys are just there to loose, and that´s clear right from the begining. Even if it wasn´t, Tom Cruise´s character is so undestructible, that ruins any chance of suspence. There´s never a moment in this movie, where we feel Ethan Hunt is in danger. We already know that he´s going to make it out alive ,in a very cool and spectacular way. The audience just waits for the next spectacular scene to happen. And i loved the way, the bad guys waited for him to put his shades on, before they start shooting, after all, after MATRIX, what the public wants is to see coolness. New action heroes don´t even have to be brave, just be cool. And by the way, how come this movie looks like a fashion-world commercial most of the time ?! In some scenes i was even expecting to see a shampoo Logo right across the screen. It´s hilarious !
The suspence scenes had no suspence. That one in the race track was already done everywhere else. The shooting action scenes were empty and impersonal, with lots of bullets flying through the air, with bad guys shooting security guards and Tom Cruise shooting anywhere. And all this filmed in such a politically correct way that it made everything look phoney. All this amount of action, which was only spectacular and nothing else, reminded me of a big budget episode of The A-TEAM. Lots of shooting but no blood , or realistic killing scenes. While at the same time it pretends to be a very serious spy thriller. . This is the type of movie that gives children the idea that shooting people doesn´t hurt. And this gets even more dangerous because this movie was trimmed to be so politicaly correct, to aim at that particular audience. The only audiences that are going to take something out of it, are the young audiences of millions of early teens or more physically mature but braindead popcorn eaters, who are going to think this is a great movie because of the cars, the bikes, and because it looks cool.
This movie gets so boring, that it even repeats the same scene with Tom Cruise hanging from cables like in the first episode. We can see this is going to be a trade mark, and i can´t wait to see where they are going to do it next time. The scenes where there is no action are boring, because the characters are just made of plastic. That so-called love story, gets ridiculous, because it´s just there as a set up for something we know it´s going to happen later, and it´s never credible. Anyway all this gets totally redundant, because despite the outcome of the love story, we can already guess, that the girl is going to get killed right at the beginning of MI-3, because Tom Cruise is going to need another Bond Gir..., sorry girlfriend next time. So who cares !
The secondary good guy characters do nothing on this movie, and are there just to make Tom Cruise look good, wich is a shame because they could have been great characters, if this MI had kept the team spirit of the original series, instead of becoming a new super hero movie. By the way, if you liked Thandie Newton, who plays the girl, check the movie BELOVED, where you can really see what a fantastic actress she is. There is nothing wrong with the actors on MI-2, the only problem is that they are all limited by this screenplay for children. But Tom Cruise must have had plenty of fun.
And if you want to go see this movie, because you´re a John Woo fan, forget it. This isn´t a John Woo movie. It´s just a movie he was hired to do. What´s left here is a strange mix between something that sometimes wants to be a John Woo film, but never allowed and some shampoo commercial.
A terrible, terrible movie. The only thing good about it, are the masks. Which i´m sure John Woo must be wearing one right now, hoping his fans won´t hit him to much for creating such a Hollywood product.
If you want to see a great american John Woo, see FACE OFF instead. That´s everything MI-2 should have been.